The Hon. Arjuna Sujeewa Senasinghe, Attorney-at-Law
Hon. Arjuna Sujeewa Senasinghe criticized the Government’s implementation capacity, claiming that overall expenditure execution was only about 15 percent and that some items had virtually no spending. He cited numerous resignations of officials from state institutions as evidence of administrative failure, tabling a list of 26 resigned officers, while contrasting this with his experience in previous ministries where he said public officials were effectively managed. He argued that the issue lay not with the public service but with Government leadership, which he described as unable to work constructively with officials.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you very much, Hon. Gayantha Karunathilleka. My flow was interrupted, but no problem.
¶ 02 Hon. Speaker, there are also items with virtually zero expenditure. Overall execution is about 15 percent. Ask me anywhere; after a whole year, they are still floundering.
¶ 03 Look at the number of resignations of officials. That too reflects this Government’s capacity. In institutions under Hon. Nalinda Jayatissa’s Ministry, not a single person has resigned. But in many others, dozens have left. If needed, I will name them. I am tabling the full list with photographs of 26 officers who resigned: Senesh Bandara Dissanayake, Chairman, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation; Ramal Siriwardena, Chairman, Sri Lanka Transport Board; Chinthaka Darshana Hewapathirana, Chairman, National Youth Services Council; and others. In no Government have so many officials resigned within one year. Officials cannot work; they are scolded; the leadership is arrogant and inefficient. We did not sack officials like that. Look at our time in the then Ministry of Science, Technology and Research; Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade; ask EDB and BOI how we got work done from the public service. Officials are capable, but the leadership must have humility to harness them.
¶ 04 An Hon. Member
¶ 05 That is why the country fell.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Monday, 10 November 2025 ·No. 22753 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Arjuna Sujeewa Senasinghe, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 10 November 2025. No. 22753. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/20464