The Committee on Public Finance (COPF) has given its approval for the Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year 2024.
Approval was given during a meeting of COPF members convened at the parliamentary complex on Thursday (Nov. 09) under the chairmanship of MP Dr. Harsha de Silva.
Appropriation Bill 2024 is scheduled to be presented to the parliament on Monday (Nov. 13) by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as the Minister of Finance.
During Thursday’s COPF meeting, the committee members looked into the government’s upcoming recurrent and capital expenditure allocations and the figures of the previous years.
The COPF chairman pointed out that it is problematic that a large number of annual budget proposals are mere proposals. Although budget proposals are presented under every administration, only a paltry number of them are implemented, he said further, adding that this sets a bad precedent. Thus, MP de Silva went on to stress the importance of conducting a follow-up of the budget to make sure that the proposals are implemented properly.
He said the follow-up regarding the upcoming budget should be done by the COPF and called for a detailed report before next Monday, on the number of proposals that have been executed after the previous budget.
