Friday 21st February, 2025

A typical Sri Lankan budget debate is currently underway. The focus of most Opposition politicians is on the politics of the budget rather than its economics. Sideshows in the House usually eclipse the national budget.

The Opposition pretends to be scandalised that the JVP-led NPP government’s maiden budget is out of sync with the JVP’s core ideology. Its MPs are heard lamenting in Parliament that the NPP has deep-sixed the JVP’s original economic policies.

True, there is a world of difference between the economic principles underpinning Budget 2025 and what is stated in the JVP’s Revolutionary Policy Declaration published under Rohana Wijeweera’s leadership. However, times have changed. So has the JVP as well as other political parties. In fact, the Opposition and the public should be happy that the JVP has jettisoned its ideological shibboleths and come to terms with the current politico-economic reality. The Opposition bigwigs ought to tell the public what they expect the NPP government to do. Do they want the JVP-led coalition to revert to its Marxist agenda despite the present-day economic reality and challenges facing the country?

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who presented Budget 2025 to Parliament on Monday, boasted that his government had proved its critics wrong by retaining the support of the IMF and managing the economy properly. In saying so, he unwittingly provided grist to the Opposition’s mill. It did not occur to him that his party, the JVP, had accused the IMF of furthering the interests of neo-imperial forces at the expense of the Global South and even vowed to liberate Sri Lanka from its clutches!

The Opposition should bear in mind that the economic crisis is bound to take a turn for the worse unless the government fulfils the IMF bailout conditions. It had to ensure that Budget 2025 was consistent with the IMF guidelines and the Economic Transformation Act, and assure the IMF that the stipulated revenue targets would be met. It has also had to stick to the borrowing limits prescribed by the IMF to manage the debt crisis. The Opposition has not cared to look at the bigger picture for political reasons and is trying to earn brownie points with the public.

Some vociferous Opposition politicians are now doing exactly what the JVP-led NPP did in the past to gain political mileage—misinforming and misleading the public with hypercriticism and false promises. Criticising the SLPP-UNP government’s approach to resolving the economic crisis under President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s watch, the NPP pledged that, if voted into office, it would upend the IMF programme. It said it would, among other things, grant public sector workers biannual pay hikes, bring down the prices of essentials, ensure that farmers would receive Rs. 150 as the guaranteed price for a kilo of their paddy, turn the MPs’ housing scheme into a university hostel complex, and make automobiles to be imported accessible to ordinary people. Today, it finds itself in an unenviable position, striving to justify its broken promises.

Meanwhile, the NPP, which held numerous work stoppages during previous governments, is now going to sample a dose of its own medicine. Expressing their utter disappointment with Budget 2025, some state sector trade unions have threatened to strike unless their demands are granted.

Workers no doubt deserve better pay, given the ever-increasing cost of living, but the question is whether it is feasible to allocate more funds for state sector salaries and pensions without increasing taxes, which are already very high. Private sector workers are experiencing the same economic hardships as their state sector counterparts, but they have not received any pay hikes. The state workers should be happy that they have been paid their salaries despite the economic crisis.

Budget 2025 contains some flaws, which we intend to discuss later, and it is the duty of the Opposition to make an in-depth analysis of what the government has proposed and make a critical evaluation thereof, but it will have to support its arguments with alternative solutions to the problems it has highlighted if it is to influence and shape public opinion. Mere sideshows and rhetoric won’t do.