Forty per cent of high-value 2025 budget proposals not adequately implemented: review

Fourteen of the 36 high-value proposals in Sri Lanka's 2025 budget, about 40 per cent, were not adequately implemented, according to a new Budget Promises assessment by the research institute Verite Research.

Meanwhile, the share of fully delivered proposals rose from 17 per cent in 2024 to 33 per cent in 2025, the highest level since tracking began in 2017. Overall, 41 per cent (15 proposals) were fulfilled or largely implemented, progress recorded even though the budget was presented in February 2025, leaving less implementation time than usual.

A further 19 per cent (seven proposals) were classified as undisclosed because adequate information was unavailable. The assessment tracked 36 proposals valued at Rs. 500 million or more, with a total allocation of Rs. 212 billion.

Notable progress was also seen in transparency. Nearly two-thirds of the proposals, 64 per cent, received an open rating; for the first time since 2017, no proposal was rated as closed, meaning at least some information was available on every proposal, even where it was insufficient to assess progress. Budget Promises is a public finance monitoring platform that has tracked the implementation of proposals in Sri Lanka's annual budget speeches since 2017.