ECONOMYENXT – Sri Lanka’s government pensioners will be paid an additional interim allowance of 3,000 rupees from September, State Minister for Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said.
Sri Lanka has about 700,000 pensioners.
The cost of the payments for the rest of 2024 will be 8.4 billion rupees, Minister Siyambalapitiya said.
Sri Lanka has raised more taxes in 2024 helped by higher value added tax rates, a recovering economy and PAYE taxes on mostly from private sector workers.
Sri Lanka has a bloated state with unemployed graduates being given non-existent jobs on top of a military expansion to fight the last civil war and there are calls to reduce the shrink by attrition, while allowing salaries of remaining people to be raised. (Colombo/Aug02/2024)