Sri Lanka to present Vote on Account for 1Q 2020 instead of fully-fledged budget

Aug 14, 2019 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s cabinet yesterday approved a proposal to present a Vote on Account (VoA) to allocate state expenditure for the first quarter of 2020 as it will be nonsensical to present a fully-fledged budget in the wake of a presidential election.

Since the Presidential Election is due at the end of this year, presenting the Budget for 2020 will be postponed to be able to prepare the budget for the year 2020 based on the composition of the new Cabinet and the new policies of the next Government.

Accordingly, a Vote on Account will be tabled in Parliament this year covering all expenditure required for the maintenance of the Government for the first four months of next year.

The government presented a vote on account for the first quarter of this year as well after the political turmoil in the aftermath of the 52-day government which took office in October last year.