The Hon. (Dr.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning
The Minister disputed a cited public debt figure of LKR 32.6 trillion and requested its source, stating that under the State Debt Management framework the relevant measure is central government debt. He said Department of State Debt figures show debt at LKR 29.6 trillion at end-2024, LKR 30.7 trillion by July 2025, and LKR 30.938 trillion by 30 September 2025. He also compared this with a claimed 74 percent debt increase during 2015–2019 and stated that the current Government is borrowing within a debt management and stabilization programme.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Member, the LKR 32.6 trillion figure you cite is incorrect. Please state your source. Under the State Debt Management legal definitions, the figures are clear. We speak of central government debt. As I said, it was LKR 29.6 trillion as at 31.12.2024; by July 2025 it was LKR 30.7 trillion; by September it was LKR 30.93 trillion. These are from the Department of State Debt. I do not know what the LKR 32.6 trillion refers to. I state responsibly that as at 30th September it was LKR 30.938 trillion. Further, during your government 2015–2019, debt increased by about 74 percent. Since commencing stabilization, we have not borrowed abnormally; we proceed under a debt management programme.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Thursday, 27 November 2025 ·No. 23013 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Anil Jayantha - Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 27 November 2025. No. 23013. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/5267