The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition raised concerns that state debt settlement funds had allegedly been paid to a party other than the creditor, citing Parliament’s control over public finance under Article 148 of the Constitution. He requested detailed information on the legal framework and institutional responsibilities for managing domestic and foreign public debt, including changes following the State Debt Management Act, No. 33 of 2024. He also asked for confirmed dates of the 10 payments reported to the Committee on Public Finance, through which USD 2.5 million was said to have been lost.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, for the first time since Independence it has been revealed that a state debt settlement was paid to a party other than the creditor. As complete control over public finance lies with Parliament under Article 148 of the Constitution, I seek precise answers:
¶ 02 1. What laws currently govern the management of domestic and foreign public debt? Which institutions are responsible for enforcing them? Since the enactment of the State Debt Management Act, No. 33 of 2024, up to today, how have the responsibilities for debt service management changed between the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Finance? Please specify with timelines.
¶ 03 2. As reported to the Committee on Public Finance, USD 2.5 million was lost across 10 payments. On what dates were each of those payments made, according to confirmed information?
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 5 May 2026 ·No. 23546 ·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/19776
Cite as: The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of the Opposition. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 May 2026. No. 23546. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19776