The Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekara, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, thank you for the opportunity.

¶ 02 This disaster has brought us all great sorrow and pain. It is the largest calamity since the tsunami, affecting almost every Divisional Secretariat at once. After the 2004 tsunami, Parliament enacted the Disaster Management Act, No. 13 of 2005. I do not believe the present Government properly understood or applied it. The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) had built plans and capacity; trained, experienced personnel were later removed and ad‑hoc appointments made. Only on the insistence of officials like Uvindu Kurukulasuriya was a problematic appointment halted.

¶ 03 The National Disaster Relief Services Centre was established to plan relief, recovery and reconstruction. In 2016, then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake supported this strongly; Anura Priyadarshana Yapa was the Minister for Disaster Management. We provided boats to every Divisional Secretariat and tractors and other equipment. Sadly, in Kurunegala today many engines do not work and some boats are unusable—evidence that in the last 1½–2 years, no proper preparedness plan was maintained through the DMC.

¶ 04 Early warnings were available. Even when we discussed with the President that if the water level rose by 55,000 acre‑feet the Deduru Oya reservoir would inevitably spill and inundate downstream, action was delayed; eventually the spill gates were opened late, releasing an enormous volume at once, contributing to the damage. I still thank the President for involving the Opposition to some extent in the response. My point is that with stronger, earlier action, the impact could have been less.

¶ 05 The National Council for Disaster Management last met on 6 August 2025 and took several decisions: to establish a Disaster Management Fund under section 17 of the Act; to approve national plans, procurement, staff recruitment and coordination with Provincial Councils. Were these implemented? If the Fund had been established, ad‑hoc fundraising now would be unnecessary. Many domestic legal mechanisms for financing exist but were not activated.

¶ 06 In Kurunegala District alone, 17,803 families (61,354 persons) were affected; 53 deaths occurred; 92 houses were fully and 902 partially damaged; 27 persons are missing. Officials at all levels worked across 56 safe centres, often on empty stomachs. We are deeply grateful.

¶ 07 Going forward, the Government must act broadly: grant relief on small housing loans—at least write off half—for those who now have no income; provide concessions and write‑downs on farmers’ loans, as crops are devastated and even vegetables are scarce in Colombo; protect small businesses, many already under parate proceedings with lands seized for minimal sums; consider the tourism sector too.

¶ 08 We thank India, the USA, Japan, Russia, Pakistan and others for support. In Kurunegala, we are visiting affected areas and assisting wherever possible. I also urge certain political groups to stop spreading distortions on social media to score points in villages. Let us strengthen innocent rural people instead. Thank you.