-The Cabinet, at its meeting held on 2020.08.19 granted approval to draft the Appropriation Bill for the financial year 2020. Accordingly, the total recurrent expenditure and the capital expenditure for the financial year 2020 have been estimated as Rs. 2692 billion and Rs.1846 billion respectively. Those estimated provisions also include the following allocation :

• Provisions allocated by the two Votes on Accounts approved by Parliament before.

• Provisions for estimated expenditure for the year 2020 approved by H.E. the President in terms of paragraph (3) of Article 150 of the Constitution.

• Provisions for accounting for a sum of Rs. 211 billion incurred in the year 2019 but which has not been accounted. Accordingly, the clearance of the Attorney General has been received for the Appropriation Bill drafted by the Legal Draftsman for the financial year 2020. As such, the proposal made by the Hon. Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of Finance to publish the said draft bill in the Government Gazette and present the same thereafter in Parliament, was approved by the Cabinet.