The Hon. Sunil Kumara Gamage - Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson, first, I bow my head to my fellow Sri Lankans who elected me to represent them in the Tenth Parliament.

¶ 02 I wish to address an issue raised since this morning in the debate on the Vote on Account—regarding the President’s expenditure Head. I obtained the figures. I will state the President’s expenses for the first four months under this Vote on Account versus those of the former President for the corresponding period last year.

¶ 03 Last year’s first four months, the former President spent Rs. 1,09X million (approximately Rs. 1,098/1,099 million). President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has presented Rs. 398 million for the first four months. That is a reduction of Rs. 700 million over four months—about 64 percent. Therefore, do not mislead this House. Some said this equals Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s first four-month expenditure. I will also clarify: within the President’s Head, of the Rs. 2,647 million shown for the first four months, Rs. 1,300 million is a grant from the World Food Programme. When you exclude that, the actual expenditure for the first four months is Rs. 1,347 million. The former President’s comparable figure was Rs. 1,901 million. Thus, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s expenditure is lower by Rs. 554 million, about 30 percent. There is room to reduce further. This is an estimate; as cuts are made, significant savings will result. We speak with facts and figures; do likewise and do not bring hearsay here.

¶ 04 Further, in this Vote on Account we have Rs. 1,000 billion for recurrent expenditure and Rs. 425 billion for capital—total Rs. 1,425 billion of real spending. The rest is for servicing legacy debt. This is not a profligate, wasteful Vote on Account; we are still paying for the past catastrophe.

¶ 05 Some asked where wasteful spending is. I cannot list 76 years, but I will cite a recent one under my Ministry. For the National Youth Services Council under Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Government this year, Rs. 323 million was spent on a “Smart Youth Night” that began in June: Rs. 70.8 million for entertainment, Rs. 154 million for stage, lights and sound, Rs. 30.8 million for marketing promotions, and Rs. 69 million for other costs. This was the largest project of the Youth Council that year. Is that how we empower youth?

¶ 06 Meanwhile, the main auditorium building of the Youth Council is unusable—leaking, with the roof collapsing. It was closed in October. Estimates for repairs are around Rs. 200–250 million. Instead of fixing essential infrastructure, they blew money on “Smart Youth Night.” That is what we call waste, fraud, and corruption—channeling funds to friends and cronies. We will not do that here. No tender rackets, no crony contracts, no election campaign spending via this Vote on Account. We will spend properly. Before you question us, question yourselves; bring statistics; do not smear and run.

¶ 07 On the forward plan: we will deploy our full strength to uplift sports and youth. To give life and opportunity to the youth of a broken society, we have prepared programmes under our Government.