35-pct of 2017 budget promises near completion, 24-pct broken

Progress for the 2017 budget proposals tracked by Verité Research shows that almost a quarter of the budget promises have been broken with only 22 percent of the promises have made substantial progress.

Eight percent of 2017 budget promises have been fulfilled; about a third of the promises were completed halfway or less.

The online platform developed by Verité Research provided information on the progress made on 37 expenditure proposals of 1 billion rupees and above, during the first six months of the year.

While progress in implementation has been slow, disclosure of information on budget promises has improved.

According to Verité Research, as at June 2017, the progress of 51 percent of budget promises was unknown. By the end of 2017, however, this number had fallen to 11 percent.

The research firm said this drop is a significant improvement on the willingness of the government to share information on the budget.

The platform, now available in English, Sinhala and Tamil, depicts the overall as well as individual progress of all 37 budget promises tracked.

For more information visit www.budgetpromises.org

Taken from lankabusinessonline.com