Budget will be based on country’s development agenda: FinMin

Political agendas are immaterial for the current administration of good governance in preparing its national budgets, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake stressed. 

He pointed out that the government is marching forward on a long term development plan and, it presents its national budgets to strengthen its forward march. Minister Karunanayake expressed these views during a media briefing held at his office this week.

Speaking further, Minister Karunanayake said Budget 2017 has focused on how to increase the government’s revenue thereby reducing the cost of living.  He also said that 410 proposals were made by Budget 2016 and majority of them have been implemented by now and, rest of the proposals will be implemented according to a given time frame in the cause of time.

“A politician, when he was in power in the past, boasted that a family can live a month on mere Rs.2,500. The same individual is attempting today to give us tuition. MP Bandula Gunawardana says that we have presented the Value Added Tax Amendment Draft Bill in an illegal manner. But we have presented it legally. The Gazette is issued generally on Friday. Supplements to the main gazette are issued until the succeeding edition is issued on next Friday. Hence, this Draft Bill was published in the supplement issue of September 13, 2016 which followed its main gazette notification dated September 9, 2016. 

Accordingly, the VAT Amendment Draft Bill is effective from September 13, 2016.  Government printer Mrs. Gangani Liyanage has informed us this very clearly. We want to carry forward the country’s development drive on a fast pace. We will take every possible effort toward such moves. Accordingly, we have informed the Industries and Commerce Affairs Ministry to minimize the duration to register companies.  As a result, arrangement has been taken to register a company within 24 hours. This will be effective from next Monday.  In addition, arrangement will also be made to keep open the Company Registration Department for the 7 days of the week.

“At the same time, big onion farmers of Dambulla have made a request about a fixed price.  We have already imposed an import duty of Rs.40 per kilogram on big onion.  We equally need to protect the consumer as well. If big onion farmers fail to fetch a reasonable price even after such a tax is imposed, our big onion farmers are facing some sort of complications. 

Meanwhile, as we are moving to the middle income level country, we will have to face some hurdles in obtaining foreign aid.  To remedy this situation, we had had some discussions with the ambassadors and high commissioners of several powerful countries over this issue recently. We specially requested them to mediate to prevent imposing high interests when loans are granted to us. The High Commissioners and Ambassadors of United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Japan and India pledged to extend their support towards us in this regard.

At the same time, the discussions we had with all stake holders in order to update the 150 years old Customs Ordinance have now become successful. We have also planned to implement the New Ordinance with effect from next January”, the minister said.

Finance Ministry Secretary Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga also participated in the media briefing.