Editorial

Post-budget state of play

Published

3 years ago

2022/11/27

The second reading of the Budget 2023 was comfortably passed last week with President Ranil Wickremesinghe strongly affirming that he will not permit another aragalaya and will not hesitate to use armed services muscle and, if needed, a State of Emergency to prevent it. Not surprisingly, it was thrown at his face that he would today not be President, and in that capacity, Head of State and Head of Government, but for the aragalaya. This is a fact of life that he cannot, and did not attempt to refute. But he did say that he did not ask for the job which, we are certain, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was undoubtedly thrust upon him and he, unlike Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, did not first drop the catch and thereafter conditionally agree to accept the position of prime minister after Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced out of office. He accepted it presumably unconditionally.

Premadasa laid down the condition that a time frame for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to relinquish office must be laid if he were to agree to be prime minister. And that too after Wickremesinghe, whose UNP was decimated to zero elected seats with him losing his own seat at the UNPs Colombo Central fortress. Nobody can quibble that RW holds an unconstitutional office. He was properly and constitutionally elected president by a comfortable majority to serve GR’s balance term after the former president fled the country and tendered his resignation from Singapore while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was acting as president. RW was elected president by the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP), a section of which party backed Dullas Alahapperuma as the common – barring the NPP/JVP – opposition candidate. Wickremesinghe was the Rajapaksa nominee for president earning for himself the sneering sobriquet of Ranil Rajapaksa. Thus he appears for all purposes the captive president of the SLPP.

As we have said before in this space, he will remain dependent on the pohottuwa until he is constitutionally enabled to dissolve parliament after February next year. But he formally went on record last week declaring that he will not dissolve parliament until the economy is stabilized. When that will happen is to all intents and purposes is anybody’s guess. Wickremesinghe, who our popular columnist Rajan Philips who returns to this page after a short absence today says was probably the first finance minister after Ronnie de Mel to write his own budget speech, did not even hint when the IMF bail out can be expected. Various straws are being floated in the wind but the earliest possible date seems to be March next year. Although the cost of living has hit unbearable heights with a sizable proportion of the population being compelled to forego one daily meal, the budget offered no tangible respite beyond repetition of long-held promises of social security cushions to the most vulnerable.

The last several days has seen the return to the country of former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa back from the U.S. whose citizenship he’s clinging on to unlike brother Gotabaya who gave it up to run for president. Basil was not long ago prevented, at the height of the aragalaya, from leaving the country but returned last week to a well publicized welcome at the VVIP lounge of the Bandaranaike International Airport. It has been widely perceived that BR pulls the strings that manipulate the SLPP. That view was enhanced by those who crowded the lounge to sycophantically receive him. They included the controversial presence of the chairman and a member of the National Police Commission (NPC). Former IGP Chandra Fernando who heads the NPC ineffectively pleaded his impartiality following the exposure of his airport presence with Basil’s cheer squad. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene said a new NPC was being shortly appointed, implying that the rotten eggs in the existing body were soon being replaced.

With the Rajapaksas are returning to the national picture, the state-controlled Daily News on Friday front paged a photo of President Wickremesinghe with Mahinda and Shiranthi Rajapaksa at a DA Rajapaksa commemorative event in Colombo. There was a public celebration of MR’s 77^th birthday both at the Abhayarama temple in Narahenpita, once the SLPP political headquarters, and at Tangalle where a jayapiritha reportedly attended by 1,000 monks had been organized. One uncontradicted report which we cannot confirm said that hefty contributions running from Rs. 50,000 to 100,000 each was collected from ministers, state ministers and corporation heads to fund this event. In a budget speech MR admitted making mistakes but did not specify what they were. Questions on whether these include the chemical fertilizer and pesticide bans, vanity projects bearing his name as well as Colombo’s Lotus Tower massively displaying the pohottuwa’s election symbol remain hanging in the air.

Perhaps President Wickremesinghe awaited the conclusion of the 2023 budget to expand his cabinet. There have been reports that he’s under pressure to do so and some observers have read ministerial ambitions among those who supported the budget. The voting figures clearly indicate the presence of Rajapaksa political muscle but whether this will presage, for instance, the return of Namal Rajapaksa to the cabinet only time will tell. The president’s focus would and obviously must be more on economic than political issues. While the critical situation that prevailed earlier this year with miles long petrol and gas queues are no longer present, the cost of living remains skyhigh. The budget offered no hope that this would change. Whether the ‘no dissolution before economic stability is restored’ declaration applies to any election whatever remains to be seen. That question will be answered by whether or not local authority elections will be held as scheduled by March 2023. That various machinations are afoot to delay these polls is very well known.

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Editorial

Cyber thefts and political battles

Published

16 hours ago

2026/04/25

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 25th April, 2026

Another scandal has come to light and made international headlines. The illegal diversion of Treasury funds amounting to USD 2.5 million, meant for bilateral debt repayment to Australia, to a third party, could not have come at a worse time. It has happened close on the heels of the launch of the National QR Payment Adoption Programme to transform Sri Lanka into a cash-lite economy. Although the two payment systems are vastly different, and risks are much lower where the QR-based payment is concerned, the fraudulent diversion of Treasury funds is likely to erode public confidence in online fund transfers, if posts being shared via social media are any indication. The digital payment scheme is the way forward for the country, and it behoves the government to take action to clear doubts being created in the minds of the public. A misinformation campaign is already underway, and it needs to be countered.

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has accused government politicians of making contradictory statements about the theft of Treasury funds. As he has rightly pointed out, it is clear from their claims that the government is still at sea, and instead of getting to the bottom of the fraud, it is trying to manage the political fallout from the incident. Some of them have even gone to the extent of bashing the Opposition. They ought to study the issue properly and speak with one voice. One need not be surprised even if the government propagandists concoct a conspiracy theory that the political rivals of the JVP/NPP masterminded the diversion of Treasury funds.

What one gathers from the government politicians’ different claims is that cyber criminals gained unauthorised access to the computer system of the External Resources Department (ERD) within the Finance Ministry through emails. They altered payment instructions, redirecting the funds to unauthorised accounts. There has been no system level hacking, according to cyber security experts. It defies comprehension why the ERD officials have not been trained to handle situations of this nature, which are not uncommon in the digital space. Even ordinary people double-check account details before transferring funds. A telephone call to the Australian creditor that was to receive funds from the Sri Lanka Treasury would have helped save USD 2.5 million.

The Opposition politicians are no better. They are also making various claims that are contradictory, and some of them have betrayed their ignorance of the issue. Most of them do not seem to know the difference between the functions of the Treasury and those of the Central Bank. They are only making the public even more confused by expressing opinions and making allegations to gain political mileage. Among them are lawmakers. They ought to be educated on the duties and functions of the Finance Ministry/Treasury and the Central Bank. What they will come out with in case of a parliamentary debate being held on the Treasury payment scam is anyone’s guess.

What needs to be done now is to ensure that the illegal fund diversion is probed thoroughly and the stolen money recovered forthwith while action is taken to prevent the repetition of such incidents. Political battles will not serve the country’s interests.

Editorial

Legislature’s meek submission to overbearing Executive

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/24

Thilina Walpola

Friday 24th April, 2026

The Opposition is intensely resentful that the government has thwarted its attempt to have President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also Minister of Finance, summoned before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) probing the green-channelling of 323 red-flagged freight containers in the Colombo Port in January 2025. When the Opposition members of the PSC proposed that President Dissanayake be summoned, their government counterparts put the proposal to a vote and defeated it.

The Opposition’s abortive bid was not devoid of politics, but Sri Lanka Customs, which released the aforementioned containers without mandatory inspections, is under the Finance Ministry. Therefore, the Finance Minister is accountable to Parliament and must answer questions from the container PSC, as it were.

The dispute between the government and the Opposition over the container scandal has more to it than a mere political argy-bargy. It reflects a deeper constitutional issue. The Constitution requires the President to attend Parliament, but frequent politically strategic interventions by him or her dilutes the spirit of the separation of powers and strengthens the Executive’s dominance over the legislature. This practice is bad for the wellbeing of democracy. The President has used, if not misused, Articles 32 and 33 of the Constitution to dominate Parliament in this manner over the years.

The JVP, on a campaign for abolishing the Executive Presidency, played a pivotal role in introducing the 17th, 19th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution to reduce the executive powers of the President, but ensconced in power, it is now silent on its pledge to restore a parliamentary system of government.

The Opposition has claimed that President Maithripala Sirisena testified before the PSC which probed the Easter Sunday terror attacks in 2019, and therefore President Dissanayake ought to do likewise. What it has left unsaid is that President Sirisena made a statement at the 20th meeting of that PSC, held at the Presidential Secretariat, on 20 September 2019. The PSC report has referred to the event as a ‘discussion’. Sirisena, who secured the executive presidency, promising to reduce the powers vested therein, should have refrained from undermining the legislature and visited the Parliament complex to testify before the PSC, as the Minister of Defence.

The least President Dissanayake can do to avoid the public perception that he, too, is undermining the legislature is to follow the precedent created by President Sirisena. Ideally, he ought to appear before the PSC in the parliamentary complex in keeping with his government’s much-touted commitment to upholding accountability and the separation of powers. After all, when the question of summoning President Sirisena before the PSC on the Easter Sunday attacks came up, the then JVP MP Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, who was also a PSC member, defended the rights of Parliament. He declared that the PSC had the authority to summon anyone for questioning.

Now that the government members of the container PSC have gone out of their way to defend President Dissanayake, the question is whether they can be expected to allow an impartial investigation to be conducted and help uncover anything detrimental to the interests of the President and the ruling coalition.

By scuttling the Opposition PSC members’ effort to have President Dissanayake testify before the container PSC, and undermining the legislature in the process, the JVP-NPP government has unwittingly reminded the public of its unfulfilled election pledge to introduce a new Constitution, inter alia, “abolishing the executive presidency and appointing a president without executive powers by the parliament” (A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, NPP Election Manifesto, p. 109).

Editorial

Terrorism financing and terrorist assets

Published

3 days ago

2026/04/23

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 23rd April, 2026

Sri Lanka has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening its national security and countering terrorism financing with renewed focus on Targeted Financial Sanctions (TFS), according to media reports quoting the Ministry of Defence. Sri Lanka’s compliance with the implementation of the TFS is in line with UN Security Council Resolutions, we are told. The irony of the aforementioned government announcement, which has come close on the heels of the seventh anniversary of the Easter Sunday terror attacks, may not have been lost on political observers.

The targeted financial sanctions, imposed on individuals and organisations suspected of involvement in terrorism or the financing of terrorism, include freezing assets, limiting access to financial systems and preventing designated persons or entities from conducting any form of financial activity within the country. Once a designation is published through a Gazette notification, a legally binding freezing order comes into effect. This results in the immediate freezing of bank accounts and restrictions on the use, transfer, sale, or leasing of movable and immovable assets, including property, vehicles, jewellery, and other valuables.

Eliminating the scourge of terrorism financing is a prerequisite for the success of any anti-terror campaign. Hence, the focus of all operations to defeat terrorism is on following the money trail, which is a forensic investigation technique used to trace financial transactions from their origin to the final destination, uncovering corruption, money laundering, or terrorism. In the case of the Easter Sunday terror strikes, it was not difficult to find out who had funded the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) terror campaign. Sri Lankan investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US confirmed that the Ibrahim family, two of whose members carried out suicide bomb attacks, had financed the TNJ terror project.

The JVP-NPP government has drawn criticism from its political opponents for shielding the head of the Ibrahim family, Mohamed Ibrahim, who was a JVP National List nominee in 2015. Taking exception to the release of the assets seized from the residence of a suspect in the Easter Sunday terror strikes, the Opposition politicians have called for confiscating the wealth of the Ibrahim family and using it to compensate the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Interestingly, former President Maithripala Sirisena, ex-Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, former IGP Pujith Jayasundara, former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena, and ex-State National Intelligence Service Chief Sisira Mendis have paid compensation to the Easter carnage victims, as per a Supreme Court order, for their failure to prevent the terror attacks.

The offence of financing terrorism is no less serious than the act of carrying out terrorist attacks. There is reason to believe that the issue of financing the Easter Sunday terror campaign has not been probed properly. The need for a fresh investigation into this vital aspect of the carnage cannot be overstated. However, the incumbent dispensation cannot be expected to open a can of worms by ordering a probe into this issue, and therefore a future government will have to get to the bottom of it.

It must also be found out what has become of the assets of the other terrorist organisations which raised colossal amounts of funds in this country. The LTTE and the JVP carried out numerous robberies, including bank heists, and obtained protection money from many people. They also robbed money and gold jewellery from the public. There have been election promises to trace the overseas assets of former rulers, but no serious effort has been made to fulfil these pledges. Illegal assets stashed away overseas must be brought back. Curiously, no political party has pledged to trace the missing assets of the former terrorist groups.