The Cabinet has approved publishing the Appropriation Bill for the 2027 financial year in the Government Gazette and then presenting it to Parliament, the Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday.

The bill has been prepared by the Legal Draftsman and has since received clearance from the Attorney General. Cabinet had approved its preparation at a meeting on 30 June 2026.

The proposal to gazette and table it was submitted by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his capacity as Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

What an Appropriation Bill does

The Appropriation Bill is the legal instrument that authorises government spending for the coming year. It sets the ceiling on expenditure and the limit on government borrowing, and it must be passed by Parliament before the budget it underwrites can be executed.

Its first reading is the formal start of the budget process. The budget speech — the second reading — is scheduled for 12 November, with the committee stage and third reading following in December on the usual timetable.

Tuesday’s decision is a procedural step rather than a policy announcement: it clears the bill to be published and tabled. The spending figures it carries are not in the reporting.

Context

The 2027 budget is being framed against a fiscal position the Central Bank’s half-year data made unusually visible. Government revenue rose 27.2 per cent in the first half of 2026, but the archive’s month-by-month reconstruction showed a Rs. 119.23 billion deficit in July following a June deficit of roughly Rs. 188 billion, after a Rs. 9.51 billion surplus for January–June.

Sri Lanka’s expenditure ceilings also sit inside the IMF programme’s fiscal targets, which constrain what the Appropriation Bill can authorise.

Not reported

The Daily Mirror does not give the total expenditure the bill authorises, the borrowing limit it sets, or the date it will be gazetted or presented to Parliament — the three figures that make an Appropriation Bill newsworthy. It does not say whether the 12 November budget date still holds. No other verified newsroom reachable from here had filed on the decision at the time of writing; Cabinet decisions are typically published in full on government channels a day or more after the meeting, and the figures should follow there.

Sources: Daily Mirror.