{"id":9401,"date":"2024-11-21T13:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T08:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheck.lk\/factcheck\/budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest\/"},"modified":"2024-11-21T13:40:35","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T08:10:35","slug":"budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest","status":"publish","type":"factcheck","link":"https:\/\/factcheck.lk\/si\/factcheck\/budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget Burdens: Prof. Athukorala shows high \u2018interest\u2019"},"featured_media":9340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"rating":[88],"speaker":[2882],"related_category":[2883],"class_list":["post-9401","factcheck","type-factcheck","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","rating-true-si","speaker-prof-aasantha-athukorala-si","related_category-debt-2-si"],"acf":{"by_who":"Prof. Wasantha Athukorala","institution":"","statement":"Accordingly, for interest payments alone, \u2026 LKR 2,651 billion in the 2024 budget. Accordingly, it is clear that relative to other things [expenses], a huge amount of money is spent on paying the interest on debt.","statement_date":"20241031","stated_media":"Aruna","fact_check":"Professor in Economics at the University of Peradeniya Wasantha Athukorala highlighted Sri Lanka\u2019s increasing domestic debt and rising interest payments\u2014which have come in to focus in the current political discourse. He claimed that LKR 2,651 billion was allocated for interest payments in the 2024 budget and that this amount far exceeded spending on other expenditure categories.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nTo verify these claims, FactCheck.lk consulted the Ministry of Finance (MoF) Approved Detailed Budget Estimates for 2024 (BE24).\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nBE24 shows that the government did allocate LKR 2,651 billion for interest payments in the 2024 budget, as cited by the professor.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nExhibit 1 shows that the allocation for interest payments (40% of total expenditure) is much higher than the 14% of expenditure allocated for the combined sum of spending on health, education, and social protection by the Central government, and potentially up to another 4% by the provincial governments.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nEven the highest sectoral allocation, which is for defence\u2014counted as allocations to both the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Security\u2014accounts for only 9% of total expenditure, less than a quarter of what is allocated for interest payments.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAll these numbers support the professor\u2019s claim: that interest payments are a much larger share of government spending than other expenditure categories.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nTherefore, we classify the statement as TRUE.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Additional note:<\/strong>\u00a0The social sector expenditure calculations are based on the 2024 Budget allocations: for Health, the Ministry of Health; for education, the Ministry of Education; for social protection, the Ministry of Women, Child Affairs, and Social Empowerment and the allocation for the Aswesuma programme under the Ministry of Finance.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*FactCheck.lk\u2019s verdict is based on the most recent information that is publicly accessible. As with every fact check, if new information becomes available, FactCheck.lk will revisit the assessment.","additional_information":"","sources":"."},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Budget Burdens: Prof. Athukorala shows high \u2018interest\u2019 - FactCheck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"si_LK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Budget Burdens: Prof. Athukorala shows high \u2018interest\u2019 - FactCheck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/factcheck.lk\/si\/factcheck\/budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FactCheck\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/factcheck.lk\\\/si\\\/factcheck\\\/budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/factcheck.lk\\\/si\\\/factcheck\\\/budget-burdens-prof-athukorala-shows-high-interest\\\/\",\"name\":\"Budget Burdens: Prof. Athukorala shows high \u2018interest\u2019 - 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