Sri Lanka is facing a poor performance record when it comes to implementing the budget proposals and maintaining transparency in 2019, Public Finance Committee (PFC) Chairman M. A Sumanthiran told a news conference today.

He said on the one hand sufficient funds were not allocated to cover government policy while on the other hand the allocated funds have not been fully used up.

Mr. Sumanthiran said transparency is another issue as the Finance Ministry had refused to divulge some of the information the public finance committee had asked for.

“There is a dire need for a budget office in Parliament to collect information and to prepare the reports on time,” he said and added that Sri Lanka was ranked 24 out of 27 countries when it came to budgetary matters.

PFC member and JVP MP, Bimal Ratnayake said the allocation for education in 2019 was not in line with the budget proposal. He said government policy was to allocate six per cent of the GDP for education, however little more than one per cent had been allocated for education in the 2019 budget. Citing another example he said more was allocated to treat non-committal diseases though the government policy was to spend more on prevention.

He said it was high time to change this situation. (Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana)