Tuesday 27th January, 2026

The NPP government’s efforts to abolish MPs’ pensions have met with stiff resistance. All members of the current Parliament, including 159 NPP legislators, will lose their retirement benefits unless the government walks back its plan. Several petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court against the bill seeking to abolish the MPs’ pension scheme. The matter is now best left to the judges of the apex court.

Interestingly, former Minister of Justice Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has pointed out that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is all out to do away with MPs’ pensions, will receive his retirement benefits.

What one gathers from Dr. Rajapakshe’s argument is that President Dissanayake, like his predecessors, will be entitled to his pension. Article 36 of the Constitution says: “Within one month of the commencement of the Constitution, Parliament shall by resolution determine the salary, allowances and pension entitlement of the holders of the office of President. Such pension shall be in addition to any other pension to which such person is entitled by virtue of any prior service” (emphasis added). Article 36 (2) says, inter alia, “Any subsequent amendment, repeal or replacement of this Article and any subsequent law or any provision thereof inconsistent with this Article shall not have retrospective operation.” Article 36 (4) says: “Parliament may by resolution increase, but shall not reduce, the salary, allowances or pension entitlement of the holders of the office of President.”

One may recall that before the 2024 elections, the JVP/NPP leaders had the public believe that they would practise austerity a la Jose Mujica, who was the President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. Known as the world’s poorest President, Mujica, refused to move into the President’s House, and lived on a farm with his wife; his most notable asset was a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle. He donated his presidential salary and waited in queues with ordinary people in government hospitals, where he received treatment. He died a few months ago. It is unbecoming of the self-proclaimed Marxist leaders who denounced the previous Presidents for using insanely expensive vehicles purchased with state funds. In 2018, Dissanayake, as an Opposition MP, made a hue and cry about two bulletproof vehicles bought for the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s use, at a staggering cost of Rs. 300 million each. He condemned that kind of expenditure as an utter waste of state funds. Now, the 600-million-rupee question is where those vehicles are. Are the incumbent government leaders using them?

Shouldn’t President Dissanayake emulate Mujica instead of his predecessors whom he berated for wasting tax money to maintain fleets of super luxury vehicles and large VVIP security divisions?

Meanwhile, it is puzzling why the JVP/NPP has not sought to abolish the MPs’ salaries as well. The JVP says it looks after its leaders and parliamentary group members. Besides, as evident from their asset declarations, they can easily do without their salaries. They should heed what Mujica famously said in an interview with BBC: “I’m called ‘the poorest president’, but I don’t feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more.” Sadly, as we argued in a previous comment, the only similarity one sees between the policies of the Mujica administration and those of the JVP-led NPP government is their lax attitude towards cannabis. Mujica legalised the recreational use of cannabis, and the JVP/NPP leaders have permitted the cultivation of cannabis for export.

While claiming that their well-wishers look after them, the JVP/NPP leaders insist that their political rivals in the current Parliament amassed huge amounts of ill-gotten wealth while they were in power. In fact, those who are currently in the Opposition enriched themselves while savouring power and now spend colossal amounts of funds on their election campaigns and live in clover. So, one can argue that the members on both sides of the House are in a position to serve the nation voluntarily.

Monday 26th January, 2026

Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa have agreed on the appointment of three civil society (CS) representatives to the Constitutional Council (CC) to succeed Dr. Anula Wijesundere, Dr. Prathap Ramanujam and Prof. Dinesha Samararatne. The new members are Austin Fernando, Prof. Wasantha Seneviratne and Ranjith Ariyaratne, according to media reports.

The new CC appointments have come at a very crucial time. The National Audit Office (NAO) remains headless because the NPP government’s efforts to appoint one of its cronies as the Auditor General (AG) have met with stiff resistance. The CC, by majority decision, rejected three nominations made by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who had overlooked the Acting AG, the most eligible candidate in the NAO. Dr. Wijesundere, Dr. Ramanujam and Prof. Samararatne acted as an effective counterweight to the government members of the CC. President Dissanayake kept the NAO without a head. The Opposition claimed that the government was waiting until the departure of the three CS members to manipulate the CC and appoint a person of its choice as the AG.

The three outgoing CS members were instrumental in changing the public perception that the CC was a mere rubber stamp for the Executive. There has been a controversy over the appointment of the head of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, with the Opposition insisting that the government succeeded in misleading the CC into overlooking the most eligible candidate. However, overall, the three CS representatives carried out their duties and functions commendably well.

The outgoing CS members have set a very high bar. One can only hope that their departure will not help President Dissanayake render the CC malleable, and their successors, together with the Opposition members of the CC will continue to thwart the Executive’s efforts to undermine the independence and integrity of the NAO.

The CC has reportedly declined a Right to Information request for naming its members who voted for and against a person nominated by President Dissanayake for the post of AG. The public has a right to know how the CC members vote in respect of vital appointments. Nevertheless, information about voting at CC meetings cannot be kept secret; it is leaked to the media.

A protracted delay in appointing the AG or the elevation of a crony of the government to that post will increase the risk of mismanagement of state funds, erode public trust and confidence in the NAO, undermine legislative oversight and impair fiscal discipline. Most of all, the government’s failure to appoint a competent, independent person of integrity as AG will diminish donor confidence, especially at a time when the country is seeking funds from the international community for disaster relief and rebuilding. There is no way the government can justify its refusal to appoint the Acting Auditor General as the head of the supreme audit institution. There are other deserving officials in the NAO, and they must not be overlooked.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has called upon President Dissanayake to appoint a person with proven competence, integrity, and independence, who commands wide acceptance as the Auditor General forthwith. It has stressed the need to appoint a nonpartisan professional to that post to safeguard the integrity of the NAO and inspire the confidence of both citizens and international partners in the financial governance of the State. Transparency International Sri Lanka, the Civil Society Organisations and the other good governance activists, too, have faulted President Dissanayake and his government for the inordinate delay in appointing AG.

Sri Lanka’s experience with all supermajority governments has been a very bitter one. Hence the need for effective countervailing forces to keep them in check. It is hoped that the CC, with the help of its newly appointed CS representatives, will retain its integrity and independence and live up to people’s expectations by reining in the executive juggernaut careening downhill and bearing down on all democratic institutions.

The Opposition asked the government, in Parliament on Friday, whether the latter would go ahead with its plan to close down low-attendance schools, and if so, what would happen to the students in them. The government said the number of students would not be the sole criterion for what it described as ‘school restructuring’, and factors such as population density and transport would also be taken into consideration. Its response smacked of obfuscation.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, speaking in Parliament, in July 2025, said 98 state-run schools were without new admissions. Pointing out that about 15% schools had fewer than 50 students each, and about two-thirds of schools had fewer than 100 students each, the President said a strategy to overcome the problem might necessitate the permanent closure of some of those seats of learning. According to teachers’ trade unions and organisations dedicated to protecting universal free education, most of these low-enrolment schools are situated in rural areas. The predicament of these schools is usually attributed to several factors such as the development of public transport, which has enhanced students’ mobility and lessened their dependence on rural schools which are in a state of neglect.

The Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) has accused the government of trying to close down low-enrolment schools across the country, and redeploy teachers currently working in them to fill vacancies elsewhere. There are 10,146 state-run schools in Sri Lanka. Of them 9,750 are under Provincial Councils and 396 are national schools. About 800 rural schools have already been closed down during the past several decades, and it is feared that many more will face the same fate in the near future.

One of the pithy slogans the JVP coined during its second armed uprising in the late 1980s was ‘Kolombata kiri, gamata kekiri’ (‘milk for Colombo and melon for the village’), which highlighted the glaring urban bias in the allocation of state resources for development. Those who voted the JVP-led NPP into power, expected underprivileged schools to be developed as a national priority. But all signs are that they will be left with neither ‘milk’ nor ‘melon’.

Previous governments, which the JVP/NPP has condemned as a curse, bore the cost of operating low-enrolment schools. True, they also closed down some low-attendance schools but did not plunge head first into doing so. What one gathers from the statements made by the JVP/NPP heavyweights, including President Dissanayake, is that the government is planning to go full throttle on the school closure project.

Closing down low-attendance schools may make economic sense for the NPP and the Bretton Woods Twins, but that is bound to lead to serious social issues. The government has offered to provide the students in schools earmarked for closure with transport to other schools. This offer is based on the assumption that transport is the sole factor that has prevented them from attending urban schools. There are other reasons why they have had to stay in the underprivileged schools.

Prudence demands that the JVP-led NPP government refrain from rushing to close down the low-enrolment schools and explore ways and means of making them attractive to more students who cannot attend urban schools for reasons other than transport issues. Otherwise, there might be an increase in the school dropout rate in the rural sector. President Dissanayake, in his aforesaid speech, informed Parliament that the school dropout figures had risen from 16,673 in 2019 to 20,759 in 2022, before plateauing at 20,755 in 2024. Everything possible must be done to bring the dropout rate down in the shortest possible time. A steep school dropout rate is far more than a mere statistic; it is a symptom of systemic social issues.

The state has a strong justification for bearing the cost of operating low-attendance schools, for such expenditure helps reduce dropouts, promote educational equity, prevent social problems and build human capital. The government must handle this sensitive issue with great care and ensure that the poor students will have at least ‘melon’.

It is said that he who opens a school door, closes a prison. Ironically, questions happened to be raised in Parliament about the closure of underprivileged schools soon after the government’s declaration that it would spend Rs. 4.36 billion to construct a new prison in Kandy.