he second reading of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) Budget 2025 will take place on December 31, 2025, following what Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazaar described as a transparent, inclusive, and consultative budget-making process.
In a Facebook post on December 28, the Mayor said she felt it was her responsibility to explain the process to the public ahead of the second reading, noting that a municipal budget is not merely a set of numbers but a reflection of performance, progress, and the city’s plans for the year ahead.
She pointed out that Colombo did not have a functioning elected council during 2023 and 2024, and that preparing a budget under a Commissioner-administered system is fundamentally different from doing so through an elected council, making the task considerably more complex. Despite these challenges, she said there was a shared expectation among councillors to deliver a people-centric budget.
According to the Mayor, budget preparation began just weeks after the new council was appointed. In July 2025, all 16 municipal institutions were instructed to submit proposals, with submissions accepted until August. Councillors from both the government and the opposition were also invited to make submissions, all of which were reviewed solely from the perspective of citizens’ needs, without political distinction.
As a further step, written proposals were invited from municipal staff members. The Mayor described this as a major achievement and a reflection of a new political culture taking root within the council.
She said the most challenging phase involved assessing the financial viability of proposals and reaching consensus, a process that continued until November 2025. This was followed by additional reviews to identify gaps and ensure accuracy.
Once these stages were completed, the draft budget was printed and reviewed through 23 standing committees, with full participation from both government and opposition councillors in a democratic manner. The public was then given seven days to review the draft, with notices published in three leading newspapers in all three languages, and copies made available at the public library and through the Municipal Treasurer.
After the public review, the proposals were examined by two finance-related committees comprising all councillors, during which proposal values were adjusted and errors corrected. The revised Budget 2025 was then presented by the Mayor to the General Council on December 22, 2025, enabling councillors to consider its approval.
Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazaar reaffirmed that the Colombo Municipal Council remains committed to its vision of building a prosperous city that offers a better and more beautiful life for the people of Colombo.
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