By Saman Indrajith

Samagi Jana Balavegaya MP Eran Wickramaratne warned in Parliament Thursday that Sri Lanka should prepare for its worst budget deficit in 35 years and the situation, which he said was due to the policy errors of the government.

 “Expenditure increases during a health crisis but that is not what has happened. Capital expenditure came down during this period. The crisis has occurred due to the collapse in government revenue. This is the policy errors, which, he said, had to be rectified urgently. He was taking part in the debate on six notifications under the Ports and Airports Development Levy Act, three Orders under the Customs Ordinance and six Orders under the Revenue Protection Act presented to the House for approval by the government.

Wickramaratne said that under the previous government, Sri Lanka had achieved and improved fiscal position after several years with the budget deficit kept at 5.3 per cent of GDP during that period.

“This however began to deteriorate by the end of 2019 because of the government‘s irresponsible statement, in the run up to the election, on taxes and while the fiscal position has deteriorated, the situation has got progressively worse in 2020.

“Government revenue has declined by 28 per cent compared to 2019. Recurrent expenditure has increased by l0 per cent. The budget deficit has increased by 41 per cent. Development spending that is capital expenditure has decreased by -1.1 per cent. And the government debt has increased by Rs. 1.020 billion in just six months rising from 13,000 billion to over 14.000 billion from January to June in 2020.”

MP Wickramaratne said that the fiscal results would get worse as the year progressed with an additional cost of a 10 per cent increase in the government staff cadre.

The import ban would begin to hit government revenue in the second half. “Corporate taxes will be sharply down and Sri Lanka should prepare for its worse budget deficit in 35 years,” he said.

The SJB MP said that in spite of the reduction in tax relief to the public there had been no benefit felt by the people.  “Prices of essentials have in fact increased despite the reduction and exemption in some taxes. Food price inflation reached 12.9 in July. The national consumer price index reached 6.1 per cent in July. These are not our statistics. These are statistics coming out of government departments,” he said.

MP Wickramaratne said the previous government had been able to rectify a regressive tax system.  The direct “tax percentage was 25 per cent in 2019 and 75 per cent was indirect tax. When we took responsibility for the government, the direct taxes were only 12 per cent and we have been able to correct a regressive tax system taking away or lessening burden on the poor in this country.”

The external sector as a result of the poor fiscal management had also lost the opportunity in the global capital markets and the country was paying its external debt by running down the reserves.  By the middle of 2019, the government reserves had been USD 859 billion, Wickremaratne said. But within one year in June 2020, the reserves were USD 6.7 billion. Therefore, there were major debt repayments. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, Sri Lanka would have to pay mainly on sovereign bonds. Sri Lanka had another USD 4 billion debt maturing in 2020 and 2024.

The country’s debt was about 87 per cent of GDP and of this 57 per  cent of was foreign debt, non-concessional as opposed to only 2.5 per cent, 15 years ago, Wickramaratne said, adding that most of the non-concessional borrowings of 75 per cent equal to US Dollars 15.3 billion were international sovereign bonds. “China has now displaced Japan as the largest bilateral creditor to Sri Lanka amounting to 12.4 per cent of government debt. Out of $ 4.1 billion of Chinese lending to Sri Lanka, only $ 760 million are classified as official bilateral debt. The rest are considered as commercial.”

MP Wickramaratne said that external debt in Sri Lanka was predominantly by the public sector and very high in relation to current account receipts. The pressure would intensify in 2020, when current account receipts would fall sharply amidst the down turn in tourism, exports, remittances and capital markets financing costs as they go up.”

He added that the government had an issue with State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) particularly as they had issued guarantees to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), the Road Development Authority (RDA), the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and SriLankan Airlines. “SOEs like CEB CPC and SriLankan Airlines are problematic for every government and therefore, we need to restructure the debt. Giving government guarantees is only manhandling the data, making the government look good.” Eventually that risk is not a contingent liability.

Wickramaratne charged that the government had mishandled the fiscal part at the beginning and then turned to the Central Bank and wanted the CB to do something about the monetary space.

“Despite the fact you forced out two members of the Monetary Board, Dr. Dushni Weerakoon and Nihal Fonseka, and despite the threat to senior members in the CB, it is not a matter of people, it is a matter of policy that you need to correct. They have done their utmost. They have provided the liquidity, but the credit growth in May, June and July has been negative. It cannot be solved only on the monetary side because you have little space on the fiscal side.”