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For whom is the Budget?

13 Nov 2021

By the Progressive Women’s Collective A country’s budget is one of the Government’s most potent instruments in signalling its policy directions. In democracies, the Budget is the financial mirror of society’s choices; a document that reflects how public money is spent for the benefit of the public itself. Over the years, successive governments of Sri Lanka seemed to not realise this reality. When a country is in political chaos, it is reflected in its Budget, and from what Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa read out last Friday (12) at Parliament, nothing else is more apparent. Ironically, the Minister commenced his Budget speech with the statement “the rich people and corporations are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer”; a statement which has been proven by the successive governments of post-Independence Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was hit quite strongly by the Covid-19 pandemic – not really by the virus, but by how it was mismanaged. When a country is led by a man who knows and believes in nothing but the military to provide all solutions, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. When a country is recovering from a pandemic, and in the middle of an economic crisis where everyone other than the amigos of the Rajapaksas are hit hard, any sensible citizen would expect the budget for the following year to facilitate the upliftment of society. When the Appropriation Bill only strengthened defence, the expectation was that at least the Budget Speech will bring some solace to the people. Unfortunately, it was a tragic performance to watch. Yet another string of vague promises. This Budget was presented at a time when the country is facing challenges on several fronts: soaring debt, decreasing incomes, dwindling foreign reserves, and shrinking livelihood opportunities. That these problems were a result of years of bad policy choices, and chaotic fiscal and monetary mismanagement, was obvious to all. People were looking for a radical course correction. Yet, what we have been presented with is a very traditional budget. In fact, it is simply a set of new numbers for a very old, tried, and failed formula. This goes to prove that the underlying problem our country is facing is in fact one of politics and leadership – without changing those, we cannot really expect change. When a self-absorbed family clan that refuses to acknowledge their limitations because it hurts their ego runs a country, we really shouldn't be surprised to see how resources have been allocated so disproportionately. While the defence sector has been allocated Rs. 529 billion, education, women and child affairs, health, agriculture, transport, and labour collectively were allocated only Rs. 525 billion. Although concepts such as “gender budgeting” were thrown around freely prior to the Budget, there is absolutely no indication that there is any understanding of how women and men experience the budget differently. Instead, women are once again treated to a set of handouts that will do little to strengthen their position in the long term. A critical issue facing women, that of predatory micro-finance schemes, has not been addressed at all in this budget, despite many promises. How further do we have to fall to understand that we are on the wrong trajectory? Why do we not spend enough on health amidst a global health pandemic? Why isn’t education, which was disrupted due to lack of resources, a priority of the Government? Do we feel safe in our own country? Do we feel that our children will be safe in the future? Can we provide for their basic needs until the next pay cheque comes? Then how justifiable is it to leave such a massive portion of the very little we have to further increase spending on the military during a time of peace? The proposed Budget is far from being progressive. Rs. 71,900 million has been allocated for the agriculture sector, which is currently facing a major crisis. Crisis-hit farmers have not received any subsidies for fertilisers, seeds, crop destructions, etc. despite being forced to participate in a massively unscientific “experiment”. Therefore, this Budget has not focused on easing the crisis of food security in Sri Lanka, which is going to be a major issue in the upcoming months, especially for women who are disadvantaged by unproportionate access to nutritious food. In terms of the labour sector, we cannot see any new proposals for increasing labour participation and salaries of the private sector, ensuring job security in the informal sector, or protection for migrant workers’ rights – issues that were tragically highlighted during the pandemic. People expected relief for them to stay afloat. The cost of living is skyrocketing. Apart from the salary increase for teachers (obtained after a tough trade union fight during which they were vilified and harassed by the Government), no salary increments were given for people to at least not suffer from hunger. Children are suffering from malnourishment in this country, and if we don’t take immediate steps to rectify the situation, no amount of money spent on defence will be sufficient to save lives and ease the strain on the health sector. The Government expects the budget deficit to reduce from the estimated 11.1% in 2021 to 8.8% in 2022. How the Government attempts to reach this unrealistic target is by cutting public and capital expenditures. One does not have to be an economic guru to realise how consumers and small businesses are going to be out of the frying pan, into the fire. The very conventional and traditional approach that has been adopted by the Government no longer fits the reality we are living in. People were promised a radical change, but as it is the case in all government promises, this too was a fallacy.  


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