Minister of Transport, Highways and Mass Media Bandula Gunawardene says that part of the funds received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has to be used for the payment of government employees’ salaries, pensions and allowances in the months of March and April.
Addressing an event held in Galle, the Minister mentioned that the government’s income is not sufficient to complete those payments.
“The biggest crisis of the state finance is that we don’t have enough income to cover our day-to-day running costs.”
“For example, for the month of March, government employees’ salaries, pensions, allowances and other day-to-day maintenance expenses have been estimated at Rs. 196 billion. The expected total revenue is only Rs. 173 billion. Then it lacks Rs. 23 billion to sustain for March”, he added.
Meanwhile, more than Rs. 500 billion worth of multi-party debt needs to be paid, the minister emphasized, adding that they will be short of around Rs. 500 billion to pay salaries for the months of March and April.
“The treasury has mentioned that it will use a part of the first tranche received from the IMF to pay these two salaries”, the minister claimed.
