We are allocating Rs. 617 billion for education and Rs. 604 billion for health in this budget. The first challenge is that after we passed this budget on March 24, it is a challenge to spend this Rs. 600 billion in the next eight months, said Minister of Mass Media and Health Nalanada Jayatissa.

It is not as if money has been allocated, that money should be spent within a period of eight months. There are capital expenditures as well as recurrent expenditures. Spending all the expenditures within eight months is also a challenge. The Minister said that spending this allocated money is a challenge rather than the question of whether it is 1 percent or 2 percent.

He said this while responding to a question raised by a Lanka Sky News journalist at a press conference held at the Government Information Department in Polhengoda, Kirulapone this morning (11).

The question raised by the journalist of the Lanka Sky News

Yesterday, the budget of the Ministry of Education was presented to Parliament. Ranil Wickremesinghe allocated Rs. 544 billion for education in his budget last year while 617 billion has been spent under this government. The Inter-University Student Federation held a discussion yesterday and said that the National People’s Power government has allocated 0.1 percent to education from the GDP. The Minister of Education and Prime Minister Harini Amarasooriya said that 0.3% will be allocated for education from the GDP in this year’s budget. When asked how the allocation will be made, she said that it will be done by cutting defense expenditure. The JVP was also involved in the struggle that led to the allocation of 6% for education. The JVP/NPP government has allocated 1.8% of the gross national product for education in this budget. 1050 billion rupees have been allocated for defense expenditure. The opposition is asking, “why this much amount being spent on the Defense Ministry at a time when there is no war? to suppress and attack who ? 

The Minister further commented:

We are spending more on education than on any other sector in the upcoming budget. However, we have to take all this into account in order to increase our GDP, the amount we can spend from the government revenue. Let’s say we have spent the 617 billion allocated for education, and then we will allocate the deficit money. We have not spent more on national security. What has happened in the past is that the Defense Ministry budget has been increased every now and then. No such increase has been made in this budget. The security forces have to be paid salaries, and they have to be maintained. There is an idea to reduce the size of the army by 2030. Reducing the size does not mean reducing security. Rather than reducing the size, we are taking technical measures to modernize it. We must protect the state.