By Saman Indrajith

The SJB, on Thursday, raised questions over the government‘s use of funds for the period between April and August this year without the authorisation of Parliament.

 Participating in the debate on Vote on Account, SJB Colombo District MP Champika Ranawaka said: “The Treasury Secretary issued a circular dated March 10, 2020, that the President had authorised the utilisation of funds under Article 150 (3) of the Constitution, only Parliament has the power to approve a Vote on Account.” But the SJB’s stance was that Article 150 (3) only gave powers to the President to draw funds from the Consolidated Fund for public expenses for three months from that date to the inauguration of a new Parliament.

“It does not grant him powers to draw funds or approve a VoA from the date of dissolving Parliament. The Prime Minister must clarify this in his capacity as the Finance Minister. We hope he will provide Parliament with a detailed account on State revenue during the past eight months of this year, how revenue from various taxes came to the government and the government’s recurrent expenditure before the end of the debate.”

 Ranawaka said 2020 would go down as a significant year in the country’s history as there was no budget.

“A similar situation arose in 2015. This was just after a presidential election and with a general election also coming. However, the then government discussed with all parties concerned and still managed to present a Budget. This government, however, though it came to power in November last year could not present a budget this year. It relied on a Vote on Account passed by the previous government which approved funds up to April 30 this year. We now have another Vote on Account for funds from September 1 to December 31,” he said.

Opening the debate on the Vote on Account for the Opposition, the SJB MP said that the country’s present fiscal crisis had not come about due to the COVID-19 pandemic but because of the ill-advised economic and tax policies of the government.

 He said the government’s tax policies implemented from December 1, 2019 had had a disastrous impact on the state revenue. Due to those policies, annual state revenue, which had been near Rs 2,000 billion during the previous government, had plummeted to about Rs 1,000 billion since last December, he said.

“The state revenue this year will be about Rs 1,100 billion, whereas the interest on loans alone is about Rs 1 trillion (Rs 1000 billion). As such, this is the first time that the country’s revenue is only enough to pay off the interest on the country’s loans,” he said.

Ranawaka pointed out that before the pandemic forced the country into lockdown, the economic growth rate during the first three months of 2020, had been –1.6%. “That was the government’s report card before COVID-19. According to the Asian Development Bank’s forecast, the economy is due to contract by 0.6% this year. The government can’t hide behind COVID-19 and claim all problems are due to it. The fact remains that the economy was in severe distress long before the pandemic came around.”

MP Ranawaka also alleged that the USD 7.2 billion foreign reserves which the previous government’s Central Bank Governor managed to build up were now being used to pay off foreign loans. He also lambasted the protectionist economic policy of the government and said that issuing a blanket ban on imports was only going to further worsen an already difficult situation. “You can’t develop local industries in this manner,” he said.