Claiming that the officials of the Ministry of Finance (Ministry of Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies and State Ministry of Finance) are working hard to provide the necessary funds to meet the essential expenditures despite many difficulties, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe stated that everyone should refrain from exerting unnecessary pressure on such officials and exchanging information that will generate anger towards them.

Speaking to the media, he said: “Plans are currently underway to end the dark era of the country and reach a certain progressive stage in terms of the economy by the end of this year. Therefore, if an individual, a group, or a political party tries to disrupt that programme, it will take the entire country to a more serious situation than it was in 2022. The officials of the Finance Ministry are taking the economy to a progressive level by making great sacrifices. Therefore, one should not exert undue pressure and influence and exchange unnecessary information which will incite anger and resentment towards the Finance Ministry. Even the media should understand the commitment of the officials of the Finance Ministry at this time.”

Claiming that many parties are working without a proper understanding of the role of the Finance Ministry in providing monetary provisions to meet the essential expenditures, he said that such parties should inquire from the relevant officials of the Ministry about difficulties which have arisen in the management process. He said that the Government has had to bear the expenses on public servants’ salaries and pensions, welfare allowances, essential services, such as health, and settlement of outstanding bills to service providers in the midst of many difficulties. He said that the Finance Ministry is meeting such expenses with great difficulty and added that the Ministry is not in a position to spend money on anything other than essential matters.

“This is why we, as the Government, are currently carrying out many economic reforms to increase the Government’s income to recover from this economic recession. Those economic reforms have also caused severe distress to the people in the short term. In the long term, they will provide the opportunity to build a good economy and have a good life, but in the short term, the people have been inconvenienced. The Government is also becoming displeased with it. However, it is important to take measures to resolve this economic crisis. Ministry Secretaries and other officials of the Government institutions are constantly being informed by the Finance Ministry to curtail expenses, limit costs, avoid unnecessary expenses, give priority only to essential expenses, and manage the monetary provisions allocated to the relevant Ministries very diligently. We are happy that they are doing so at present,” added Semasinghe.

Speaking further, he said that the Government would have to maintain this situation for a short period of time for long-term economic growth. If the same is not done, he said, queues to purchase essential commodities will reappear, gas shortages will reemerge, durations of scheduled power cuts will continue to increase, and difficulties will arise in the import and distribution of essential goods. Against such a backdrop, he said that it is not a successful process for external parties to interfere and influence the difficult management of the Finance Ministry through a lack of understanding or for various political reasons. He also said that the need of the majority of the people in the country is to create a suitable economic plan to ensure that they are able to live their day-to-day lives without difficulties.

Since the year of 2020, people continue to suffer due to the economic crisis that has arisen in the country. Especially in the past two years, the prices of goods and services have increased at huge rates and people have, therefore, become unable to meet their daily needs. In this situation, the attention of the Government has been focused on various solutions such as garnering support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but many parties accuse the Government of not implementing a proper programme to find solutions to the economic crisis.