The Hon. Chathura Galappaththi
Chathura Galappaththi noted the retirement of Parliament’s Director (Administration) M. M. M. Iqbal and then criticized the President and Prime Minister for not attending the World Marketing Forum hosted in Sri Lanka, which he described as an important opportunity to engage ambassadors, business leaders and investors. He stated that the Leader of the Opposition attended the event and was invited to address the Singapore Economic Forum, while suggesting that the President was prioritizing party and ministerial matters over economic forums. He then indicated he would turn to the Budget presented by the President as Finance Minister.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, thank you for the opportunity. First, I wish a happy retirement to Mr. M. M. M. Iqbal, who served as Director (Administration) of Parliament.
¶ 02 Yesterday Sri Lanka hosted the World Marketing Forum, attended by ambassadors, global marketing leaders, local business captains, and—most crucially—investors. Unfortunately, neither the President nor the Prime Minister attended. It was a missed opportunity to leverage this gathering for the economy. Our Hon. Leader of the Opposition did attend and upheld Sri Lanka’s stature, receiving an invitation to address the Singapore Economic Forum. Many investors were present yesterday. I feel the President is more occupied as party leader—managing party affairs and even some ministerial work—than attending such crucial forums.
¶ 03 Now to the Budget presented by the President as Finance Minister…
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 14 November 2025 ·No. 22848 ·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.
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/lk/speeches/20722
Cite as: The Hon. Chathura Galappaththi. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 14 November 2025. No. 22848. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/20722