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

The Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake

New Democratic Front· Badulla· 17 December 2024 ·Oral question: Oral Question: IMF Delegation Expenses in Washington DC (Q.96/2024)

Public FinanceCorruption & Governance Reform
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Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake questioned why Ministry and Central Bank officials travelled to Washington for an IMF meeting when approval had reportedly been granted to hold it via Zoom. He alleged that about USD 6,000 was spent, including business class travel contrary to a circular requiring economy class, and asked why public funds were used for travel and accommodation when the meeting could have been conducted online.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 My first supplementary: Even though approval was granted to hold the meeting with the IMF via Zoom, a large sum was spent for officials of the Ministry and the Central Bank to travel to Washington. Around USD 6,000 was spent on travel, and they went business class despite a circular requiring economy class. The IMF had agreed to hold this as a Zoom meeting, yet they went and stayed at a private residence of someone at the Embassy. Within two weeks of this Government, officials have been hanging on the Government’s ear and spending public funds. When it could have been done via Zoom, why incur these costs?

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 17 December 2024 ·No. 1734685396083959 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 17 December 2024. No. 1734685396083959. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/18135