Security sector ‘takes 48% of salary bill’

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s defence and security establishment is taking up 48 percent of the budgeted state salary bill in 2023, an analysis by Verete Research, a Colombo-based think tank, shows.

Defence related salaries were 32 percent of the total bill and other security bill made up of ministry costs and the public security 16 percent.

Health salary bill was 17 percent and education was 9 percent, the analysis showed.

The expenditure on the Ministry of Defence was 36.75 percent, and the Ministry of Public Security which includes police, was 11.88 percent, according to the portal Publicfinance.lk run by Verete Research.