The Hon. (Dr.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning
The Minister said the incident discovered on 23 March was reported to the CID and remains under investigation, so the Government would present details to Parliament only once adequate quantitative and verified information is available. He said questions about officer involvement, prior knowledge, and internal controls are still being examined, and there was therefore no immediate requirement for an earlier statement. Addressing public suspicion, he stated that reports indicate a suicide and cautioned against unverified claims, clarifying that the written complaint was lodged by the Director-General of the ERD.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, the incident was indeed discovered on 23 March. To present matters to Parliament, we require quantitative details. After lodging the complaint with the CID, and as the investigation is still ongoing, we have consistently said we must discuss based on adequate quantitative information. Whether officers were involved, had knowledge, and how internal controls functioned—these are complex issues still under investigation. Therefore, there was no immediate requirement to make a statement at that time. We will present information in due course.
¶ 02 Regarding the public suspicion raised, the reports indicate a case of suicide. To say “he provided the report” triggers doubts of foul play; such statements without responsibility can mislead society. As I have clearly stated, the written complaint was lodged by the Director‑General of the ERD. We do not know the source of the contrary claim. It is better to present verified information rather than mislead the public.
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/19780
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 May 2026. No. 23546. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19780