10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Lal Premanath

Jathika Jana balawegaya· Matara· 20 January 2026 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Pension Entitlements and Samurdhi Banks Computerization (Q.67/2026)

Public FinanceEmployment
AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Hon. Lal Premanath raised a supplementary question regarding long-standing pension issues faced by Samurdhi Development Officers, including some recruited after exceeding the usual age limit following a past political upheaval. Acknowledging current fiscal constraints, he asked whether the Government could provide an interim allowance or other relief until their pensions are regularized.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, my first supplementary question is this:

¶ 02 Samurdhi Development Officers were recruited as a result of a major political upheaval at that time. However, the rulers then did not deliver the best outcomes to the country. As I recall, at one point jobs were given to those who backed that upheaval, including many who had passed the age threshold. Their pension problem has dragged on for a long time. Although we are now in a severe fiscal adjustment, I understand you may not be able to settle this as we might wish. But until their pensions are regularized, is there any possibility of an interim allowance or other relief?

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 20 January 2026 ·No. 23200 ·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.
Permalink
/lk/speeches/8962

Cite as: The Hon. Lal Premanath. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 January 2026. No. 23200. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/8962