On Thursday (22), in the well of the House, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa asked some elementary questions. How many proposals did the 2026 Budget contain? How much was allocated to each, and how much had been spent by 30 September? What financial and physical progress had been made on the special projects listed across 28 sectors in the Finance Ministry’s own summary of major public investment projects, issued on 7 November last year? What of foreign-funded projects, unspent funds, and reallocations? And what was the Government’s target for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), set against what has actually come in?

Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando replied that the information was not readily available, would take considerable time to compile, and could not be provided that day. No date was offered. In effect, the Government sought indefinite time.

One need not be a partisan of the Opposition to find this troubling. The 2027 Budget is to be presented on 12 November, barely three weeks hence, by the President in his capacity as Finance Minister. Premadasa asked how the President could deliver a budget speech if his own ministry lacked these answers. It is a fair question, and the Government would do well to answer it rather than bristle at it.

Dr. Fernando made two points that deserve a hearing. First, annual performance is customarily assessed at the end of the year, with ministries updating online reporting systems and submitting periodic reports to Parliament. Second, Sri Lanka follows a performance-based, output-oriented budgeting system rather than zero-based budgeting, and a budget must weigh current conditions, future developments, and global trends, not merely last year’s spending.

Both points are true as far as they go. Neither answers the question. Indeed, the second rather sharpens it. An output-oriented system is, by definition, one in which outputs are measured. A government that budgets on performance must know how it is performing. If ministries feed data into online systems as a matter of routine, a nine-month snapshot should be a matter of a few keystrokes, not months of labour. Either the systems work and the figures exist, in which case they should be tabled, or the systems do not work, in which case the public is entitled to know that too.

It is worth recalling the President’s own words. At the pre-budget discussions for 2026 held at the Presidential Secretariat in July last year, he told Finance Ministry officials that allocating money to projects was not enough and stressed the need to check whether the intended benefits were truly reaching the people. That is precisely what the Opposition Leader asked the Government to demonstrate. He was, in a sense, holding the President to his own yardstick. 

Nor is this an abstract matter of accounting hygiene. The 2026 Appropriation Bill put total Government expenditure for the year at Rs. 4,434 billion. That is the people’s money, raised in no small part through a tax regime that has bitten deep into the salaried class and the small entrepreneur under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed reform programme. Taxpayers asked to tighten their belts year after year are entitled to know what was done with last year’s contribution before being told what will be taken from them next year. 

There is also the matter of Parliament’s constitutional role. Under our Constitution, Parliament has full control over public finance. That control is hollow if the House is asked to approve fresh allocations without being told how the previous ones were used. A budget debate conducted without the previous year’s performance figures is not scrutiny; it is ritual.

The National People’s Power (NPP) came to power promising a clean break: transparency, accountability, and an end to the opacity of past regimes. It would be unfortunate, to put it mildly, if, two years into office, it falls back on the oldest refuge of Sri Lankan officialdom, the assurance that the information is still being compiled.

The remedy is simple. Before the budget speech, the Finance Ministry should table a consolidated statement of allocations, expenditure, and physical progress as at 30 September, together with the FDI figures. Where the data is incomplete, let it say so. Half an answer honestly given is worth more than none at all.

A Government that cannot tell the House where it stands has little business telling the country where it is going.