Hard reality hits the public only later. It is usual to over-estimate revenue, under-estimated current expenditure and show impressive expenditure allocations.
Fairy Tale
In the 2008 budget, Sri Lanka originally projected revenues of 750.7 billion rupees, current expenditure of 712.8 billion rupees and capital expenditure of 331.2 billion rupees.
In November, with only one month to go ,the revised out-turn was presented to Sri Lanka's gullible lawmakers as 709 billion rupees of revenue, 743.3 billion in current expenditure and 278.1 billion as capital expenditure.
The provisional data released in the central bank annual report now show that the finance ministry has only raised 655.2 billion rupees in revenue (95.5 billion rupees below target) and current ex