News
Budgetary allocation for defence, education up, President’s office down
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake will present the maiden budget of the new Government to Parliament on Friday.
The total Government expenditure for 2016 is estimated at around Rs. 1,941 billion, of which Rs. 1,314 billon will be for recurrent expenditure and Rs. 626 billion for capital expenditure, according to the Appropriation Bill for 2016 which was presented to Parliament on October 23.
The second reading of the budget will be for 12 days from November 23 to December 5 while the third reading will be from December 7 to December 23.
The defence budget will remain high next year too with more than Rs. 306 billion allocated while there has been a sharp reduction in the allocation for the Office of the President.
The total allocation made for the Ministry of Defence for 2015 when it was amalgamated with the Ministry of Urban Development was around Rs. 285 billion.
Next year, however the Defence Ministry alone will get around Rs. 306 billion, of which close to 85 per cent will be spent on operations activities of the Ministry, the Sri Lanka Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Department of Civil Security and the Coast Guard Department.
The allocation for the President’s office for both operational and development activities is a little more than Rs. 2.3 billion, down from the Rs. 9.6 billion that was allocated in the 2015 budget.
The allocation for the Ministry of Education will see a four-fold increase from the previous year, going up to more than Rs. 185.9 billion from the Rs. 47.6 billion allocated in the 2015 budget.