The massive disparity between what is
proposed a (political statement meant to fool the people into believing that huge
amounts have been allocated to worthy causes) and what is actually spent in the
budget year is simply mindboggling!
This is the most significant dichotomy
of SL Budgeting that has escaped scrutiny/ comment/revision/ and above all
honesty on the part of the Finance Ministry, who must be smirking under their
breadth each time a budget is presented, knowing it is full of half-truths,
with billions that will never be spent.
The level of ignorance and incompetence on
the part of the 225 lawmakers defies comprehension, as no one has picked up on
this anomaly and addressed the problem openly, so people will understand the
truth. They have a hidden agenda.
Furthermore, those with NO BRAIN CELLS
also knows as the Media, do not know how to highlight this misnomer, to
galvanize the public into action.
Apart from possibly the MOD, through its
highly structured and overstaffed forces allocations and budgeting procedures,
who make sure they spend their Rs350B even if it means doubling up on the
alcohol to the officer’s mess, all other departments and ministries do NOT have
competent budgeting systems, and accounting and organizational procedures in
place to spend their allocation from the Treasury.
Ironically whilst this is going on, the
treasury withholds allocations from already incurred expenditure keeping
suppliers on hold to be paid causing much distress, and resulting in huge
interest payments to Banks on loans and overdrafts, and our company is a case
in point, of this treatment. They play this classic game of teaming and lading,
possibly to show lower deficits and borrowings! If departments and ministries
fail to spend allocations, future budgeting will also suffer the same fate, as
allocations will be reduced resulting in a vicious cycle.
Little wonder then that in the last
administration, the President’s office was the few who requested and received
supplementary allocations, over and above the initial budgets, so they could
waste the public purse, on taking plane loads of sycophants on junkets, and
remember the plane load that went to the Caribbean on a fruitless venture to
secure the Commonwealth Games for Hambantota. It shows what the priorities of
Govt.’s are in spending the public funds. Waste in the midst of unspent
allocations.
To illustrate this point more clearly,
please remember the pledge and allocation made in the last budget to vastly
increase the expenditure on education and healthcare, which were election
manifesto promises. The columnists praised it as being long overdue in a
Country that was really spending very little on Education in comparison to the
GDP, and this needed expenditure was for the future investment in the Human
Resources Potential of Sri Lanka, if it was ever to achieve a high quality of
life and better living conditions for its citizens.
Lo and behold the reality was that the
amount spent was even less than the previous year, and NOT double or more that
was allocated. I have actually pointed this out last year as pie in the sky and
only said that a maximum increase of 25% is practical as the infrastructure in
NOT in place for a massive instant increase in spending. Well even I had overestimated
the ability of the Public Sector to take up the challenge in this area.
So what gives? The Public Service
infrastructure is incompetent. Public Servants whose pay is guaranteed no
matter what, are simply NOT doing what is expected of them. The private sector
does in one week what they do in a month, an indication of their efficiency or
lack of!
This lackadaisical attitude means that
few of the earmarked projects actually get started let alone completed. I recommend
a two pronged approach. One where the public servants at the top three grades
of the SLAS who are responsible for these projects, have a financial penalty
for non-completion of Govt. policy spend. Secondly, an Independent Consultancy
for each Ministry be set up, of private sector professionals to monitor how
this money is spent, in conjunction with the Auditor General’s department which
currently is too understaffed to manage such a system, independent of its
current functions which are also overstretched.
Only then will the checks and balances
of the Public Sector officials, their competence, procrastination, dedication,
to their job and dereliction of duty become apparent to the public at large.
Now with the FCID investigations in full force, they are even less likely to
venture into spending, resulting in the Govt. getting the blame for DOING
NOTHING. In short they do nothing.
The Govt. can then lay the blame squarely
on the public sector for not carrying out its policies, as proposed to the
people. I am surprised that up to date no one has picked this important aspect
of budgeting. Therefore nothing is being done about it, the Govt. looks quite
foolish and incompetent in everyone’s eyes.
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