The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of the Opposition
Sajith Premadasa challenged the Deputy Minister’s claim that electricity tariff increases were not linked to IMF conditions, citing an IMF statement of 29 April 2025 referring to prior actions on electricity cost-recovery pricing and the automatic price adjustment mechanism. He argued that delays to the EFF tranche were connected to these conditions and asked the Government to clearly acknowledge that proposed tariff increases arise from commitments under the IMF agreement, tabling the relevant document.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to create a dispute. The Hon. Deputy Minister first said tariff hikes are not under IMF conditions. I draw his attention to the statement by Evan Papageorgiou, IMF Mission Chief for Sri Lanka, on 29 April 2025, which clearly refers to “prior actions relating to restoring electricity cost-recovery pricing and ensuring proper function of the automatic electricity price adjustment mechanism.” He affirms there are conditions; without meeting them, the EFF tranche was delayed. Even the President has accepted electricity tariffs will be raised. Why not clearly state that tariffs are rising due to the IMF agreement’s conditions? I table the document.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Thursday, 8 May 2025 ·No. 1748426168056758 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of the Opposition. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 May 2025. No. 1748426168056758. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/21804