10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam

Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi· Batticaloa· 15 March 2025 ·Debate: Debate: Appropriation Bill 2025, Twenty-first Allotted Day - Committee Stage, Head 112 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism)

Public FinanceForeign Affairs
AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Hon. Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam questioned the Government’s calculation of foreign exchange earnings from tourism, arguing that arrival numbers alone are insufficient without assessing actual per-tourist spending and whether high-spending visitors are being attracted. He also urged Hon. Vijitha Herath to use his influence within his party to support a credible investigation into accountability issues that the affected community can trust.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 I am sorry, Hon. Chairman. I am winding up.

¶ 02 Please calculate it. Because you are calculating foreign exchange income incorrectly. Today we see that among foreigners coming to Sri Lanka there are even those unwilling to pay Rs. 100 for a three-wheeler ride. Therefore, merely saying 500,000 foreigners are coming is no use. We request you to see whether high-spending tourists are coming, and what the actual per-tourist spend is.

¶ 03 Hon. Vijitha Herath, we placed great trust in you. We still do. Because from the Opposition you carried out a great task and entered Parliament with the highest number of votes in a Parliamentary Election. Therefore, you know that all I said on accountability is fair. Please, speak to those in the politburo, convince them and conduct a proper investigation in a manner that the affected community can trust. Thank you for the time, Hon. Chairman.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Saturday, 15 March 2025 ·No. 1745317151078324 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
Permalink
/lk/speeches/11568

Cite as: The Hon. Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 15 March 2025. No. 1745317151078324. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/11568