Budget Check 2023

#BudgetCheck by FactCheck.lk, a platform by Verité Research, returned for the third consecutive year on 14 November 2022 as they fact checked President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s budget speech for 2023. The team fact checked a total of seven statements from the Budget Speech. Of these, four statements were graded True, and three Partly True. See below for statements fact checked along with their narrative, verdicts, and relevant sources.

“Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves are USD 3.1 billion.”

Sri Lanka’s gross official reserves was reported as $3.1bn at end 2021 and $1.7bn at end Oct 2022. However, the reporting includes reclassified pre-existing Chinese Yuan swap of $1.4bn (¥10bn), which doesn’t fit the international definition of reserves.

- CBSL Annual Reports

“At present we are maintaining 420 state institutions and enterprises. In one year, the losses incurred by the 52 key SOEs out of these is LKR 86 bn.”

In 2021, the net loss of the 52 key SOEs was LKR 86 bn. In 2019 and 2020, these SOEs had a net profit of LKR 4 bn and 34 bn respectively. In the first four months of 2022, they had a net loss of LKR 859 bn.

“While the revenue in 2021 has been drastically reduced to 8.3% of GDP. It is one of the lowest values in the world”

According to the CBSL, Sri Lanka’s revenue as a % of GDP for 2021 is 8.7%, not 8.3%. However, according to the IMF, among 190 countries, Sri Lanka has the 7th lowest revenue to GDP for 2021. 

“The sanctioned capacity of the prisons currently under the prisons department is 13,241. However, the current total number of detainees (including suspects) is 25,162.”

The cited statistics are from 2020 (latest available from the Prisons Department); where the total capacity of the prisons was 13,241, while the daily average population of convicted and unconvicted individuals was 25,991.

“Even if we work hard to increase agricultural production, over 30% of our production is lost due to various issues, such as improper storage and transportation issues.”

The latest available data (2019) shows that the post-harvest loss in fruits and vegetables is ranging from 30 – 35%, where unsuitable packaging during the transportation is the highest contributor. 

-National Institute of Post-Harvest Management Annual Report of 2019

“…a large portion of government revenue has to be spent on their [public servants] salaries and wages.”

Government salaries and wages have been a large proportion of the total revenue and grants: 57.8% in 2021 and projected to be 47.5% in 2022.

- Ministry of Finance Annual Report