Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he would look to strip government expenditure down to its “bare bones” this week, but did not comment on Colombo’s massive military budget which continues to dominate spending.
“We need to find the dollars,” Wickremesinghe said in an interview with Al Jazeera, as senior officials engage in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “The IMF will not bring in the entire thing,” he added. “But if we start with the IMF, it will be easier for others to help us.”
However, the now six-time prime minister did not comment on Sri Lanka’s military budget. According to Janes, the proposed defence allocation accounts for 15% of total government expenditure for 2022, a 14% increase over the allocation in 2021.
Tens of thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers remain occupying the Tamil North-East, where they impinge on several aspects of daily civic life in the region.
Wickremesinghe instead lamented the state of Sri Lanka’s finances, stating earlier in the week that the government will “we have to print another (one) trillion rupees”.
