The government has approved 39 new health development projects for 2027 and is projecting a capital budget of Rs. 2,000 billion for the year — a target that sits against a spending record showing barely a sixth of this year’s allocation used by mid-June.
The health projects
Cabinet approved the 39 projects on a proposal from the Health and Mass Media Minister, aimed at upgrading hospital facilities and closing infrastructure gaps across government health institutions, the Daily Mirror reported.
The National Planning Department evaluated 41 proposals submitted during 2025 and 2026 and recommended all 41 for implementation in 2027. All 41 were folded into the Public Investment Programme for 2027–2031. Provisions were then planned in the 2027 Budget for 39 of them — the ones judged ready to implement.
That leaves two approved proposals inside the five-year programme without money attached in 2027, a gap neither report explains.
The spending problem
Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa told the post-Cabinet media briefing that 2027 capital expenditure is projected at Rs. 2,000 billion.
“For the upcoming year, we project capital expenditure or development expenditure of 2,000 billion rupees (2 trillion rupees). This is a substantial budget,” he said, according to EconomyNext.
The figure matches the Rs. 2,000bn capital programme President Anura Kumara Dissanayake pledged in May, so it is a reaffirmation rather than a new number.
The harder figure is the execution rate. Sri Lanka had spent only 17.4 per cent of its Rs. 1,380 billion capital allocation as of mid-June this year, Finance Ministry officials have said — about Rs. 240 billion in roughly half a year. The 2027 target is therefore some 45 per cent larger than the 2026 allocation the state is currently struggling to spend.
Jayatissa said the government is speeding up procurement and approvals to fast-track public investment projects. Chronic under-spending on capital votes has been attributed to procurement delays, slow line-ministry approvals and thin technical capacity.
The 2027 Budget is due to be presented on 12 November, with the Appropriation Bill gazetted this month.
Neither report names the 39 health projects, their locations, their individual or combined cost, or which two proposals were left unfunded. Neither gives a revised full-year 2026 capital spending estimate, nor says what share of the Rs. 2,000bn is new work as against projects already under way.
