This year’s Budget is not a magic trick or a Colombo-centric budget, said COPE Chairman Professor Charitha Herath, joining the Budget debate in Parliament on Saturday (13).
MP Herath pointed out that a country’s Budget should be an intervention that combines the economy and politics, adding that this year’s Budget is an economic intervention that is tied to the political challenges of the country.
“When I listened to many of the Opposition MPs’ speeches I understood that they seem to assume that a budget is some magic trick that provides relief. A Budget is a combination of political economy. The Opposition only does an emotional intervention to the economic issues in the country, it does not provide practical solutions. Not just one political party should be responsible of the economic crisis faced by this country. We all need to get together to solve this matter. There are many issues related to public financing. Many state institutions have turned to white elephants. All previous governments should take responsibility for this because it is their political decisions that created these major loss incurring government bodies,” Herath noted. Herath expressed his gratitude to Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa for intervening in the informal economic activities in the country via the new budget unlike previous policy makers who ignored the existence of it. The country’s economy which was already in a crisis was further crippled by the pandemic, MP Herath added. He pointed out that every country was heavily impacted by the pandemic on foreign financing.
Herath furthered that the government do acknowledge that many avenues for receiving foreign currency have become limited, however, the budget has been presented in line with this prevailing situation.
