Sri Lanka govt borrowed 22-pct less than what parliament approved: Ravi

May 15, 2017 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Finance Minister stressed on Sunday that the Government was not on a borrowing spree as claimed by the joint opposition and that they were well below the approved limits.

Releasing statistics to the media to prove his point the minister said that last year although the Parliament approved gross borrowing limit was 1.

699 trillion rupees, the actual usage was 1.319 trillion rupees indicating an unused sum of 380 billion rupees or 22 percent. He said that in the past the unused borrowing amounts were much smaller. 'In 2014, the Parliament approved limit was 1.

78 trillion rupees but the usage was 1.749 trillion rupees with a balance of 54 billion rupees." "In 2011, it was  3 billion rupees, 34 billion rupees in 2012 and  17 billion rupees in 2013." In 2016, the gross borrowing limit was lower than 2015 whilst the approved limit in 2017 is even lower at 1.57 trillion rupees.