Expenditure Heads of defeated Ministries to be resubmitted before April 30

The Expenditure Heads of Ministries that were defeated yesterday will be resubmitted to Parliament for approval before April 30, Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella announced today (29).

By Sandun Jayawardana

In answer to a query raised by United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Bandula Gunawardena, Mr Kiriella noted that the Ministries had sufficient funding to continue until April 30 as Parliament had already passed a Vote on Account to authorize Government funding for the first four months of the year.

“We will be resubmitting the relevant Expenditure Heads again before that. There is nothing to get excited about,” he remarked. 

Mr Gunawardena observed that the defeated Expenditure Heads will have to be presented again to Cabinet in the form of a Supplementary Estimate and included in the Order Paper of Parliament before being resubmitted. He urged the Government to follow the precedences that had been set earlier.  

Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa pointed out that Expenditure Heads had been defeated even during the time of his Government and said the Opposition had no objection to the Government resubmitting the Expenditure Heads as long as it followed due procedure and did not try to “rush things through via short-cuts.”

Most Expenditure Heads of the Ministry of Internal & Home Affairs and Provincial Councils & Local Government, along with all Expenditure Heads of the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development were defeated during a vote last evening. 

A vote on the Third Reading of Budget 2019 is scheduled for April 5, which would mean that Parliament will have to sit again before the end of April to pass the Expenditure Heads of the defeated Ministries.