The Finance Minance Minister’s eBudget goes in to the box

On Wednesday afternoon a beaming Finance Minister, Dr.







Sarath Amunugama ceremonially transferred the an e-assisted budget to the red budget box for the UPFA government’s maiden budget reading on Thursday.



On Wednesday afternoon a beaming Finance Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama ceremonially transferred the an e-assisted budget to the red budget box for the UPFA government’s maiden budget reading on Thursday. The 2005 budget is the first to come out of the National Budget Department after it went electronic this year and cut down data collection time from four months to one month.

The complete re-vamping of the existing budget process is part of a three year Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded project that started in 2000, this includes a customised Integrated Budget System (IBS).

The IBS is “a state of the art web-based application that enables the Department to manage its process of budget preparation on an interactive basis with the various government agencies under its purview,” said a statement said Wednesday.

The automation, says PricewaterhouseCoopers Lanka, the international consultants to the project, has cut down the time taken to formulate the budget, introduced international accounti