2006 budget to take country on development blitz
 

BY Uditha Kumarasinghe and Rajmi Manatunga

CABINET Spokesman Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva yesterday declared that the Government's 2006 budget will contain an aggressive development programme for the coming year.

He said the Appropriation Bill for the 2006 budget will be presented in Parliament on October 4 and the Budget speech delivered on November 8, the Minister told the weekly Cabinet press briefing yesterday.

Following a Cabinet memorandum submitted by Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Cabinet approval was granted to present the Appropriation Bill 2006 in Parliament on October 4, he said.

"We are quite confident that the Government has a very secure majority in Parliament and we will be able to pass this budget without any difficulty," he said.

The total expenditure envisaged for 2006 is Rs. 1,003 billion. The recurrent expenditure would be in the range of Rs.483 billion with the capital expenditure Rs. 520 billion.

Minister De Silva said the capital expenditure in the 2005 budget was Rs. 450 billion. According to these figures, there is an increase of Rs. 70 billion in the capital expenditure of the 2006 budget.

"This shows the Government is really going for a development budget next year. The Government will divert a large amount of money for development rather than for consumption," he said.

Meanwhile, the Government intends maintaining the budget deficit in the range of 8.2 per cent of the Gross National Production.