Sri Lanka Government in financial crisis: Government employees’ salaries to be delayed?

Sri Lanka Government decided to curtail 5% of the estimated expenditure allocated under the proposals of the 2023 Budget to all ministries.

This decision was reached according to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s instructions to the Cabinet of Ministers.

This was announced by Cabinet Spokesman Bandula Gunawardena today (January 10) at the Cabinet briefing held in Colombo.

Reasoning that the Treasury is currently facing a severe depletion of funds, worse than what was anticipated, Gunawardena explained that the potential income that may be earned through taxes within the first few months of 2023 has greatly reduced owing to the grave economic crisis that Sri Lanka saw in 2022.

Thus, the payment of government employees’ salaries and other welfare expenses such as the Samurdhi allowances have proved difficult for the months of January, February and March Gunawardena stated, adding that the payment of Samurdhi allowances to all low-income families is likely to be delayed by nearly two weeks.