The Finance Ministry has estimated that a billion rupees could be saved annually by restricting the Cabinet of Ministers to 35.

Dismissing the UNP’s alternate budget proposals as an attempt to deceive the masses, Junior Finance Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya emphasised that the Opposition’s only revenue proposal wouldn’t make any tangible impact on the government bid to bridge the budget deficit.

Contrary to its pledge, the UNP would never be able to restrict the cabinet to 35, he declared.

According to budget estimates, the targeted budget deficit for 2009 would be Rs. 336 billion, or 6.5 of GDP. The revenue is estimated at Rs 855 billion.

UNP heavyweight Ravi Karunanayake said that nothing could be as ridiculous as the finance ministry’s assertion. He said that Siyambalapitiya was talking as if a billion rupees was nothing.

If he really believed that a billion rupees could be saved, the government shouldn’t hesitate to prune the cabinet, he said, asserting the likes of Siyambalapitiya was the bane of this country.

Responding to The Sunday Island queries, the MP estimated at least Rs. 5 billion rupees could be comfortably saved by limiting the cabinet to 35. This was a conservative estimate, he said, adding that they were in the process of studying the actual expenditure.

He challenged the government to reveal the basis on which it calculated that only a billion rupees could be saved by restricting the size of the cabinet. The entire country would like to know the total amount spent on ministers, deputy ministers and non-cabinet ministers, he said.

The recent revelation of the monthly house rent of 40 politicians being met by the government since April last year was a case in point, he said. With each receiving Rs 100,000 a month, the total cost to the taxpayer would be Rs 48 million annually.

JVP MP Ranaweera Pathirana said that the government should set an example by taking meaningful measures to cut down wasteful spending. Although pruning the cabinet would be necessary that wouldn’t be enough, he said.

There was an urgent need to review government expenditure. The Anuradhapura District MP said that although the government had set up a Nation Building Fund for a two year period among other measures targeting the taxpayer, action hadn’t been taken to curb growing ministerial expenditure.

The 1% National Building Levy on importers, manufacturers and service providers would be an additional burden on the people, the MP said.

He said that Treasury Secretary Sumith Abeysinghe had said on Friday that the government would have to depend on commercial borrowings to cover what he called development expenditure. Pathirana said that in an effort to control commercial borrowings as much as possible, the government would have to even reluctantly stop extravagant spending.