The Hon. Nishantha Perera

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson, thank you for the time to speak on the inaugural Budget of the NPP Government. The Opposition says do not speak of history. But without history there is no present; without present, no future. Because history went wrong, we are in power today. Had they governed well, the people would not have sent them home.

¶ 02 What country did we inherit four months ago? The economy was smashed; the Central Bank broken; health, education, agriculture, tea—all ruined. Farmers were dragged to the streets; plantation fertilizer was cut. People were afraid to go to state hospitals. The Health Minister ended up in jail. This is the history they now ask us to forget.

¶ 03 From 1948 to 2005, under them, the foreign debt in 2005 was Rs. 2.22 trillion. From 2005 to 2014, it rose to Rs. 7.83 trillion. From 2015 to 2019, under the then rulers now in Opposition, it reached Rs. 13.9 trillion. Then from 2019 to 2021, under Gotabaya Rajapaksa, another Rs. 1.627 trillion was borrowed. Then from 2021 to 2024, entrusted to the next leader to take us “over the suspension bridge,” we borrowed Rs. 3.3 trillion more.

¶ 04 Who received the relief from all that? Not the tea, cinnamon or paddy farmers. Relief went to Arjun Aloysius and those who broke the Central Bank; tax concessions to the Wayamba Distilleries (linked to Johnston) and the Mendis Group (linked to Aloysius)—Rs. 468 billion in tax relief (Rs. 46,800 crores). That is why the country fell here.

¶ 05 This Government must now rebuild—a production economy that brings in dollars. That is why President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presented this revival Budget. Remember the sugar tax scam—Rs. 16 billion; the Central Expressway Galagedara–Rambukkana segment—Rs. 160 billion vanishing. They drank milk; the people bled.

¶ 06 We must now send money to the villages through the Rs. 1,400 billion capital allocation—when money goes to the village, the economy expands, and the country enters a revival era. Budget 2025 lays that foundation—through Clean Sri Lanka, human development, and digitization. The ID program is not to “collect IDs” as they allege, but to modernize.

¶ 07 We have not introduced new taxes in this Budget; and we have cut Government expenditures by 100% at the top lines: for the first time, the President’s head has been fully pared, as have the PM’s and Ministers’. Which President in history has returned his foreign travel dollar allowance to the Treasury? In the past, both Government and Opposition travelled in planeloads at massive cost—Rs. 5 billion for two days. Our President leads by example—many here cannot come close to that.

¶ 08 Hon. Deputy Chairperson: Your time is over, Hon. Member.

¶ 09 Please one minute. On tea: after 1977, they destroyed institutions—the Paddy Marketing Board, Janawasama, Upcountry Estates, the Small Tea Development Authority, factories, the Tea Shakthi Fund—public money and the industry were destroyed. We must strengthen the village economy and uplift small tea growers in Galle and Matara. This Budget allocates: Rs. 1.75 million per grower for rehabilitation; Rs. 2.742 million per nursery/planter; Rs. 5.5 million for replanting/infilling; Rs. 6 million for new direct tea planting; Rs. 6.25 million for mechanization; Rs. 2 million for solar projects to cut factory costs.

¶ 10 Under the gem industry, in Ratnapura, Galle, and Matara, we uplift smallholders to earn dollars and move into a revival era.

¶ 11 On national security and crime: They now speak of the underworld; but they created “Gonawala Sunil,” “Soththi Upali,” “Julampitiye Amare,” and so on—nurtured and fed by those regimes.