Treasury Secretary advised to be tough on releasing funds

• Cabinet  has decided to drastically curtail allocations of state funds for non-essential projects

By Sandun Jayasekara  

Cabinet approval was granted to instruct the Treasury Secretary to release funds only for extremely essential recurrent expenditure until the country’s economic recovery is achieved, Cabinet spokesman Minister Bandula Gunawardana said yesterday. 

Addressing the weekly post cabinet news briefing last morning, Minister Gunawardana said priority will be given to ministries of Education, Transport and Highways, Public Administration, Home Affairs, Local Government and Provincial Councils, Health, Agriculture, Defense, Public Security, Urban Development, Housing and Defense when budgetary allocations are made. 

In order to put an end to waste, misappropriation and unnecessary spending at state establishments, semi government and state owned enterprises, a zero based budgeting and logical and analytical mechanism for the management of state revenue will also be introduced as proposed by the budget 2023, he stressed.  

The cabinet that met on Monday has decided to drastically curtail allocations of state funds for non-essential projects as the government is in a severe and unprecedented financial crunch.  

Minister Gunawardana said a vast amount of government revenue has been set aside over the years to run various development project offices and project management units without any post analyzing mechanism to determine their viability or productivity.  

Accordingly, a committee led by senior public officer H.T. Kamal Padmasiri had been appointed to conduct a survey on this issue. The committee has recommended to close down 55 such offices and management units, suspend 32 and continue to run 46 with a minimum possible staff, he added.