The Budget and backdoor gazette - Editorial

The Appropriations Bill or the first reading of the 2014 Budget estimates of revenue and expenditure, presented to Parliament on Tuesday, shows that expenditure will rise to Rs. 1542 billion—about 30 percent more than the figure for this year. Among the significant expenditure figures are Rs. 253 billion for the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development and Rs. 144 billion for the Ministry of Ports and Highways.

The expenditure for Defence and Urban Development Ministry is Rs. 36 billion less than the estimate for 2013, but that is because the Police Department was brought under a separate Ministry of Law and Order this year and that ministry gets Rs. 52.3 billion for next year. With the war having ended more than four years ago, questions are being raised as to why so much is needed for defence and for whose benefit.

The vital area of health gets Rs. 117.6 billion, about Rs. 22 billion more than the 2013 figure. For Higher Education the government has allocated Rs. 29.5 billion, a little more than the Rs. 27.9 billion allocated for 2013 and this comes amidst allegations that the government is planning to privatise or hire education beginning with the laying of the foundation stone next month for the opening of the local campus of the British Lancaster University. Reports say Britain’s Crown Prince Charles who will be the guest of honour at the Commonwealth Summit here is expected to lay the foundation stone at Mirigama for this first foreign university campus while students union say they will hand over a petition to the British High Commission next week protesting against the privatisation of higher education here and the participation of Prince Charles in it. Whatever agenda the regime may have in mind, we would like to join millions of people in saying, “hands off free education”.

On November 22, after the conclusion of the much-awaited Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) here, President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Minister of Finance will present the second reading of the budget to explain how the regime intents to bridge the massive budget deficit. The appropriation bill also sets a borrowing limit of Rs. 1,100 billion for next year—about 15 percent less than the limit for this year. The amounts may vary depending on the tenure and maturities falling due in any given year.

During the past few decades there has been a declining interest in the budget because most estimates of expenditure change during the year through huge supplementary estimates while even estimates of revenue are regularly changed by increasing taxes or prices of essential items through midnight unannounced gazette notifications. Most people believe their lives are affected, often for the worse through the gazette than the budget.

Thus the Budget speech, an analysis or interpretation of the economy, is now given much less space in newspapers than the several pages allocated in earlier decades. This is because of the decline in public interest in the budget. One of the most notorious and controversial cases of the gazette being used instead of the budget was this week’s move to give tax holidays amounting to as much as Rs 120 billion a year for the Australian casino magnate James Packer and a Sri Lankan blue-chip company to set up two huge casinos in Colombo. Fortunately, because of massive protests led by Buddhist prelates, leaders of other religions and civic action groups the move to approve the casinos has been suspended and we hope it won’t come back soon through some backdoor move without parliamentary approval, as done so often in this era of authoritarianism without checks and balances, accountability and transparency.