Sri Lanka It's Happening

November 14, 2007

This years government budget is leaves many people scratching their heads trying to figure out what it is all about. The president (who also happens to be the Minister of Finance) almost broke the record for the shortest budget speech.

In fact it is probably not correct to call this the government's budget for 2008. More appropriate to call it the Rajapaksa family budget - for the Rajapaksa family control ministries that get about 75% of the allocation for expenditure. This budget certainly looks and feels like a household budget.

The president speaks of keeping the prices of fuel steady 'at least till january' (what then?). If the world market prices go up (to which level?) the prices will still not be raised but the duty on cars will be increased (by how much?) to cover the losses .

Not everything is as vague as this. There is a definite figure for the defense expenditure (you can guess where 10% of that will end up). There are other definite figures as well most notably an Rs 20.00 tax on your phone, car and house. If someone has all three, he needs to pay Rs 60.00 Rupees a month as taxes. How much does it cost to collect this Rs 60.00? what if someone defaults? are you going to send a person to jail for not paying Rs 60.00 as taxes which the government will then squander?

All in all it seems very likely the that the president will dissolve parliament before the vote on the budget being taken. Another Rajapakshe (unfortunately for him he shares the same name as the president) just defecting to the opposition is probably a good indication of which way the wind blows.

Posted by raditha at November 14, 2007 10:39 AM