Budget 2023 - Desperately needy overlooked

President Wickremesinghe’s 2023 budget was a big change from the usual run-of the-mill budgets the people of this country have been used to hearing. There were no big promises of looking into easing the burdens of the poor and needy who today are struggling to make ends meet.

There were no promises of salary increases to the state sector employees or to those in the private sector, many of whom are still enduring wage cuts imposed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020.
While the cost of having just two meals a day for a family of four costs well over Rs. 40,000 per month, minimum wages remain unchanged at Rs.12,500 a month in 2022. Meanwhile, the rate of minimum wage for employees was Rs.10,000 per month according to data published annually by Central Bank. The budget also did not address of tackling the worsening problem of malnutrition among children, except for a passing mention an unknown allocation of funds ‘to look into nutritional needs of children’. 

According to UNICEF “...Families are skipping regular meals as staple foods become unaffordable. Children are going to bed hungry, unsure of where their next meal will come from. The UNICEF report shows that over 5.7 million people, including 2.3 million children, require humanitarian assistance. This makes Lanka among the top ten countries with the highest number of malnourished children. In addition, Lanka now has South Asia’s second highest rate of severe acute malnutrition.  

A main cause of malnutrition, is the rising cost of basic staple foods. Yet the budget lays emphasis on developing export oriented agro-products, rather than emphasizing increasing production of domestically need agricultural products.

To increase local milk production, budgetary allocation has been proposed to set up an artificial insemination centre. While the idea is praiseworthy, the problem is that dairy farmers are unable to purchase food to feed even herds they now possess, due to the ban on import of cattle feed. The same applies to poultry farmers and so the cost of a single egg is now beyond the reach of most families. 

Not surprisingly malnutrition in the country is rising. Earlier this week, the Teaching Hospital at Peradeniya was forced to temporarily suspend all routine surgeries after running out of several essential drugs and consumable items used for anaesthesia and surgery. In some cases patients at the National Hospital in Colombo who require insulin have been asked to bring their own.

The head of the Medical Laboratory Technologists Association has said ‘... several hospitals could not perform basic diagnostics tests since “most chemicals and solutions needed for their tests were not freely available at state hospitals’. Monday’s budget makes no mention of how the president and his cabinet of ministers hope to overcome the problem.

‘srilankabusines.com reports export earnings from tea in September 2022, increased by 11.63% Y-o-Y to US$ 117.82 Mn. This was mainly due to the higher Export of bulk tea (11.95%) and tea packets (6.98%).
Sadly, the tea estate workers on whose shoulders these profits are dependent, remain the lowest paid body of workers in this country. Some of the bigger plantation companies have even gone to the extent of refusing to follow government regulations to increase worker’s wages to Rs.1,000/- per day.

With many young people leaving the plantations due to low wages, it may not be long the tea production could fall. This would be a disaster the country cannot afford to bear.

Without saying so, the budget holds out a possibility of further price increases via surcharge taxes on the importation of diesel and crude oil. A further price increase on diesel would mean an all-round price increase on all goods and services. 

How an already over-burdened population will be able to cope with these increases, boggles the imagination. Sadly, this particular budget offers no relief to the ordinary man on the street, nor does it tell us how the budget will be balanced and we are still left clueless as to how the country expects to repay its outstanding foreign financial debts.

It’s sad to be negative, but it still needs to be said. Monday’s budget proposals read very much like a bad housewife’s budget. It lists out what needs to be done. In some instances, costs are included, but no mention is made of how government expects to find the money to fund its programmes or how the deficit will be bridged.
If it is any good, with the foreign debt burden hanging around our collective necks and expenditure far outweighing income, it seems difficult to expect more.