Crisis-hit Sri Lanka’s parliament Thursday approved President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s 2023 budget, vital to raising government revenue and securing a twice-delayed IMF bailout.
The island nation has been reeling from more than a year of severe shortages and runaway inflation, prompting protests that ousted Wickremesinghe’s predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July.
Parliament voted overwhelmingly to sign off on Wickremesinghe’s plan to raise overall tax revenue by nearly 70 percent and privatise loss-making state enterprises after a month-long debate.
Wickremesinghe, a six-times prime minister, has already sharply raised taxes and increased fuel, water and electricity tariffs and rationed petrol and diesel in a bid to stabilise the economy.
His moves followed the government declaring bankruptcy in mid-April and defaulting on its $46-billion foreign debt for the first time since independence from Britain in 1948.
But the main opposition said Wickremesinghe’s first full budget…
Source: Guardian Newspaper
