Good governance boosts Govt. revenue: Ravi K

By Charumini de Silva

Government revenue has increased by 6-8% across the board during the first quarter of this year when compared with the corresponding period last year, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said yesterday.

He said that the Government was keen on looking for all possible ways to create new income generation methods.

“We want to get a reciprocal reduction on the expenditure,” he added.

Karunanayake also said that the trend of higher revenue collection by the Customs and the Excise departments would continue and asserted that this was the basis of a clean government and clean results.

The Excise Department collected Rs. 3 billion in November 2014 and by April this year the figure had risen to Rs. 10 billion.

Expressing why the previous regime had failed to collect such high revenues, Karunanayake opined that it was due to unprecedented corruption.

“We have ensured good governance, reducing the chances for corruption. There is no interference by either the President or Prime Minister. As a result, the entire benefit is now coming to the Treasury,” he said.

“Only after we came into power were new methods of income generation created. Our intention is to eradicate corruption. We are fighting for the majority of the people in this country. We want to bring down the cost of living while looking for new income generation methods without putting any burden on them.”

The Minister also confirmed that the country presently had $ 7.8 billion in its foreign reserves.