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Education budget: Ministers throw the book at each other
View(s):Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam yesterday hit back at Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who had charged that the Education Ministry’s 2017 budgetary allocation was cut because this year’s allocation was under underutilised.
Mr. Kariyawasam told the Sunday Times yesterday the allocation was underutilised because of Treasury delays in releasing the funds on time.“Often, the money is not passed by the Treasury when we want it. There are delays. That is one reason the utilisation rate is low,” the Education Minister said. He was responding to the budget speech where Mr Karunanayake had said the Government had set aside three times more money to the Education Ministry in 2016 than the 2014 allocations.
However, the ministry had been able to utilise only around Rs. 38,850 million at the end of the third quarter of this year.
“Yet, we took careful stock of the situation and therefore allocated almost Rs. 90,000 million for 2017,” Mr. Karunanayake said.
There was a reduction in the allocation for the Education Ministry’s recurrent expenditure in the 2017 budget, although the money set aside for capital expenditure remains the same, he said.
Mr. Kariyawasam said a large percentage of the budget allocation was being spent on the national “Nearest School is the Best School” initiative implemented through Provincial Councils. Under this 7,000 schools were receiving science laboratories and other facilities.
“We have called tenders and this takes time,” the Minister said. Payments for contracts are usually made on installment basis. The money is, therefore, used up in stages. Most of these projects are now ongoing and new programs will be initiated with the 2017 budget allocation, the Education Minister said.
Meanwhile, Ceylon Teachers’ Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the Finance Minister’s statement was a serious matter. “It points to the inefficiency of the Education Minister. He must resign if his ministry has spent only a third of the budget allocation for 2016. Or, if the Finance Minister was making a wrong claim, the Education Minister must clarify matters,” Mr. Stalin said. “The end result is that students and teachers have suffered.”
Ahilan Kadirgamar, a political economist linked to an alliance seeking an increase in the allocation for education, said President Maithripala Sirisena had assured in his manifesto that six percent of the GDP would be allocated for education. “Now, it is a complete reversal,” he said.