Recovering from this crisis without international cooperation is impossible – Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana
Mass Media, Transport and Highways Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana said in Parliament yesterday that Parliament should not be used to sling mud at each other and it should be used to make a collective effort to move out from the existing economic crisis.
The Minister said that it is impossible to recover from this crisis without international cooperation.
Minister Gunawardhana further said that if this situation is not changed, the country cannot be moved forward in 2025.
“We must tell the country this. We should come to Parliament and discuss the subject.
Parliament has full power over money. We should speak in an enlightened manner in this regard within the Parliament.” he said.
The Minister said that the country collapsed because of two major gaps that our country could not withstand for a long time. One is the current account deficit of the State budget.
Whatever the previous government was, the government was run without enough money to run day-to-day. No matter who governs, the salaries of public servants must be paid and also the pensions have to be paid.
In 2023, the total income of the Sri Lankan government was three trillion. The recurring expenditure was 4.6 trillion. So there is insufficient money to run the government.
This deficit has been like this for nearly 35 years. When governments ran out of money like this, they had the ability to spend money by bringing a supplementary estimate. But money cannot be minted now. As the deficit in the mobile bill could not be covered, every government carried out development activities on the basis of foreign aid. Every road built in the country is built on credit. We are stuck today without being able to pay that debt. We will not be given credit again until the debt is paid. Even if the debt is not restructured, there will be no foreign aid to build roads. We have signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for that.
So far, we have signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Parliament has full power over money. The Opposition says that an agreement made by one government is being changed by another government. We have promised the world that we will reduce the debt by 2030. Accordingly, Companies like Lazard have agreed to restructure their loans.
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