The Hon. Dilith Jayaweera

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson of Committees, as we discuss tourism today, let me first note: on 2025.05.30 I submitted several questions to our subject Minister. To date, no answers. While our government MPs speak here and there about tourism, this is a vast and globally competitive field; superficial talk is not enough. We need strategic changes, which have not occurred.

¶ 02 One key question I raised: the Minister of Foreign Affairs is also functioning as the Minister of Tourism. I believe he has no time to think through a proper strategic program.

¶ 03 It has been a year since the President assumed office. Not even a simple commemoration was held. Why? If we examine whether people’s livelihoods improved over the last five years, the answer is no. Do not say I brought this government to power. It was the poor, the underprivileged, who made a revolutionary decision and gave a mandate. We speak against the yardstick of their expectations.

¶ 04 We talk about economic progress; data are cited. I will not recite them because, properly analyzed, they are largely hollow. Traveling around the country, I see the poor have become poorer. Multiple taxes imposed on them are what helped the President boast about exceeding revenue targets. Where is this year’s real economic progress? What exact, structured, strategic steps produced it? None.

¶ 05 Socially, beyond the economic strain, society is under heavy pressure. There is an oppressive approach by the government. Institutions are being dismantled for the use of coercive power. Our once-respected judiciary is being used; judges are transferred capriciously; police officers are shuffled around.

¶ 06 Take the “drug container” spectacle. While the government tries to celebrate, more people are being caught with drugs than before. Making pretty speeches detached from reality is not fair. Think of those innocent people who held expectations of this government.

¶ 07 Next, cultural destruction. This country has long had a society built on parental and teacher-guided discipline. We, too, were corrected and disciplined and received free education. Now, with an NGO-driven agenda, an ill-conceived bill is brought, trying to pass it with a two-thirds majority, labeling teachers and principals as criminals. How will a school function then? How will a child be guided?

¶ 08 For example, Clause 4(4) of the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill contains an illustration: a teacher or principal calls a child “B” suspected of stealing to the assembly stage and calls “B” a thief, thereby humiliating “B”, and it says the teacher has committed the offence of corporal punishment. Is this the kind of society you are creating? Teachers now say it is time to resign because they could be prosecuted and jailed for addressing even dress or grooming matters of students. This undermines our religious and cultural values.

¶ 09 My key point to the government: consider whether this government is truly yours. Reflect on whose contract you are executing. Are you fulfilling the aspirations of the underprivileged who placed their hopes in you, or someone else’s?

¶ 10 Geopolitically, too—whose contract are you executing? I regret the President’s address to the 80th UNGA. Where was the pride of a nation with great heritage? We stooped low, bowing twice to others. Please reflect. Never in history has there been such a disoriented government that does not know for whom it works. You claim to rebuild our economy but are in fact propping up foreign economies by squeezing the last cent from our poor.

¶ 11 Hon. Deputy Chairperson of Committees: Hon. Member, your time is up.

¶ 12 Please grant me one more minute.

¶ 13 Take a moment of self-reflection. If you are people educated by free education funded by taxpayers, have some empathy. Think whether what you are doing is right. That is all. Thank you.