The Hon. Dewananda Suraweera

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson of Committees, I am fortunate to join the debate on the 2025 Budget. When this forward-looking Budget to rebuild a collapsed country is presented, the very Opposition groups that wrecked and bankrupted the country are in disarray—speaking more about the NPP and our vision than we do.

¶ 02 They now desperately search for minor errors in a Budget which the country praises. In villages, even some SJB members say this is a remarkable, unforgettable Budget; public servants say they have never received such an increase in increments. People also say those Opposition groups will not get another chance. Unable to bear this, the Opposition runs around shouting “Eureka!” trying to find faults.

¶ 03 To the Opposition: you still cannot present a substantive critique of this Budget or of this Government. Before and after we came to power, you only wrote essays about us, while it was you who destroyed and bankrupted the country, turning it into a land of corruption and ridicule, stripping it of its past glory as the “Granary of the East,” “Red Soil Isle,” and “Pearl of the Orient.”

¶ 04 This Government presents a Budget to lift the country out of the crisis you created. We sought a mandate to rebuild; respecting that mandate, we prepared a Budget covering all sectors. Government MPs and Ministers have discussed it in depth, but the Opposition, deaf to its merits, only hunts for flaws.

¶ 05 A teacher or a mother chastises a child for good reason. Similarly, the Opposition knows our direction but, out of malice, presents shabby criticisms—calling it neoliberal, useless, or spinning tales. The people’s lives are burdened with sorrow, and they have rendered two strong mandates to the NPP to end that suffering. This Budget is a step towards relief.

¶ 06 The President, Prime Minister, and Cabinet are making the State apparatus efficient, effective, and clean. Strengthening the State sector to underpin a productive national economy, this Budget uses incentives and strategic intervention to raise national production, prevent misallocation, unproductive accumulation, and wasteful consumption, and raise living standards.

¶ 07 The Government leads by example—tightening its own belt, cutting perks, and curbing State expenditure from the President downwards. This Budget targets limiting public spending, mobilizing full tax revenue, mobilizing the working population, and focusing on practical, non-wasteful projects whose benefits flow to the people—an essential new step to rebuild the nation and present our foundation to the country and the world. Thank you.