The Sri Lankan Head of the State, delivering the 2024 budget proposal to the Parliament, stated that an additional allocation of Rs. 55 billion will be directed towards completing projects that were temporarily halted due to the economic crisis and to provide necessary provisions for other capital expenditure proposals.
The President, who emphasized that a new mechanism to approve development projects has already been introduced, mentioned that a government committee has been established to review new projects.
As per recommendations of the Committee, the Minister of Finance will grant approval for projects, he said, adding that the government would not allocate funds for projects that deviate from this procedure.
Meanwhile, this will enable the allocation of capital expenditure to give a higher contribution to economic growth, according to the President.
“This is very important for fiscal and debt sustainability’. To achieve this objective, I will increase capital expenditure to Rs. 1,260 billion. This is equal to 4 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)’“, he added.
Furthermore, he mentioned that this allocation would be made by transferring Rs. 55 billion from the Vote of the National Budget Department to Capital Expenditure Vote.
“Thus, we would allocate Rs. 1,260 billion for the development activities of next year”.
In addition, the projects implemented under foreign loans and grants which were temporarily suspended will be allowed to recommence after the completion of foreign debt restructuring activities, according to the President.
He also said that since it is observed that the project management committees have been unable to achieve expected objectives for the development projects, a unit should be established for this purpose under each Ministry from 2024 onward, to include project-related activities to the duty list of the permanent staff and to procure human resources under contract and duty basis only when related specialists are not available in the public sector.
