The Hon. Dharmapriya Wijesinghe

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the Motion to Postpone the Budgetary Position Statement – 2026, presented by Hon. (Dr.) Kaushalya Ariyarathna, as announced by the Deputy Minister of Economic Development. As Hon. Ariyarathna and the Minister stated, this is a legal requirement prior to presenting the next Budget.

¶ 02 However, we repeatedly observe Opposition Members setting aside the legal nature of this requirement and instead using the opportunity to advance their political narratives and sling mud at the government. That has been the pattern.

¶ 03 Hon. Presiding Member, certain fundamental issues in prior administrations created the need for this requirement in our country. The current National People’s Power government is intervening to correct those past wrongs. We witnessed several issues as a country and economy. One was fiscal discipline. Serious problems arose, both nationally and at subnational levels, with the erosion of fiscal discipline and misuse of public finance. This ranged from the Central Bank bond scam—misappropriation of Central Bank funds and reserves—onwards. At one point, the Auditor General said that of Rs. 11 billion expended in one year purportedly on capital formation, only around Rs. 1.8 billion in assets could be found upon audit. Such severe leakages persisted across successive administrations. It was not an isolated incident but a pattern.

¶ 04 Even at local authorities, public funds—state, local, and taxpayers’ money—were openly misused, with some declaring that 5 percent commissions must be taken from every project for councillors. That is how degraded fiscal conduct had become. Therefore, the country needed reforms. As a government, we are ready to deliver those reforms—that is what we are doing. On one side is fiscal discipline; on the other, transparency. People had no idea what elected representatives and appointed officials were doing with public funds and assets. We have moved beyond such opaque governance.

¶ 05 There were also issues regarding democracy—civil liberties and economic democracy. People’s economic rights were undermined by those in power, pushing people out of the economy. That, in turn, harmed growth.

¶ 06 Next, there was the information problem. State data lacked accuracy. A Finance Ministry official once said the growth rate could be set to whatever was required. Targets were dictated. That was the extent of the information crisis. When we began planning, senior officials told us that about 70 percent of the data at hand were inaccurate. We had to rebuild on new, accurate data. That is the state the country had fallen into. Against that background, after 2022, the economy suffered a severe collapse because of the path taken by past administrations. When a new government was established, our foremost task was to transform a dysfunctional state back into a proper state. Today we are discussing one of the key mechanisms to achieve that. Likewise, when formulating the annual Budget, this statement sets out how it should be structured.

¶ 07 Some Opposition Members said the Fiscal Policy Statement lacks creativity. It is not a creative manifesto; it is compliance with a statutory requirement. The “creative” exercise is the Budget itself, not this statement. Some Members talk to hear themselves, even if off-point. One Member has been hanging on to “Container 323” for months—his every utterance is about a container. Another says there is no creativity and fancies himself a great creative. Yet another focuses only on court cases, using this forum to shape narratives about cases affecting him personally.

¶ 08 Therefore, we say the Fiscal Policy Statement tabled today by the Deputy Minister on behalf of the Minister of Finance is the fulfillment of a legal obligation. On that basis, we will restructure and take the country in a new direction, opening a new chapter in our history. With that, I conclude.

¶ 09 Thank you, Hon. Presiding Member.