No New Year calendars and diaries from state institutions
Sri Lanka’s ministries and state agencies have been directed to tighten belts curtailing all non-essential and non-priority expenditure including those spent on vehicles, travel, building, and facilities and especially printing of calendars and diaries for the coming New Year 2020.
This directive has been issued by the President and it was endorsed by the cabinet of ministers.
The new interim government has imposed a ban on the printing of diaries and calendars with greetings for the New Year 2020 by using money from the Consolidated Fund or any other statutory fund, the Finance Ministry announced.
The printing of diaries and calendars by state institutions will be discontinued following the government’s measures to prune the administrative overhead of those institutions, including State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
Such popular New Year gift items create a lasting impression on the client, and institutions design the diary and calendar to suit its identity, several advertising experts said.
Diaries are used every day keeping the brand of the institution in the client’s mind. Unlike pamphlets or adverts in magazines, calendars and diaries will not be discarded for a whole year.
Calendars and diaries are used as a way to showcase an institution’s achievements and it is a most popular gift item to present to clients or staff and corporate bodies, they added.
The advertising experts noted that the popularity of those gift items has continued, in spite of the increasing use of technology.
Under this set up, ministries and sate institutions, including SOEs, have also resorted to printing of calendars and diaries at the end of each year for their staff and the public as festive seasonal gifts.
Issuing a National Budget Circular, Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle has directed all heads of state agencies to prudently manage the expenditure of all public institutions.
He instructed the Chief Accounting Officers (CAO) and Accounting Officers (AO) to ensure that proper expenditure control measures are in place and that such measures are effective in reducing expenditure.
New vehicles and office equipment should not be purchased and buildings should not be rented, Mr. Attygalle ordered.
However, purchasing of utility vehicles such as garbage compactors, tractors will be considered on case by case basis by the Treasury, he said.
He urged all the CAOs and AOs to extend their fullest cooperation to the government initiative of economic revival while maintaining an efficient expenditure control and financial discipline.