President’s expenditure tripled; Deputy Minister explains

05-Oct-2025

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Claims that the President’s expenditure in the Appropriation Bill recently tabled in Parliament for 2026 has tripled compared to 2025 are based on a technically incorrect comparison and are therefore a false press statement, Deputy Minister of Industry and Economic Development Anil Jayathilaka Fernando said.

He made this statement via a special announcement. To clarify further, he said:

There is a false news item circulating that the President’s expenditure in the 2026 Appropriation Bill has tripled compared to 2025. The basis for that calculation is incorrect. Two additional items were added to the initial appropriation in the 2026 Appropriation Bill that are not part of the 2025 initial appropriation in the revenue-expenditure plan for 2025.

Specifically, an additional 5,050 million rupees was added for the “Pure Sri Lanka” project and 1,000 million rupees was added for research, innovation and commercialisation. The correct total appropriation for 2025 was 9,000 million rupees.

The appropriation for 2026 is stated as 11.37 billion rupees, which includes expenditures for research, innovation and commercialisation. 

Therefore, comparing this figure directly with 2025 without accounting for the Pure Sri Lanka project and research funding already included skews the comparison. Thus the initial comparison is both substantively and technically incorrect.

The only significant increase in the revenue-expenditure plan is due to the salary increases for public servants. In 2025, public servants’ salaries were increased by 60–80 percent. We are phasing that increase; accordingly, a 35 percent salary increase for public servants will be implemented in 2026.

A notable rise in expenditure is in capital spending — which has increased from 6,454 million (2025) to 8,712 million. The increases in capital expenditure include funds for the Pure Sri Lanka and research-innovation projects.

False information spreads quickly and undermines the government’s efforts to bring stability to the country. We urge responsible media organisations to verify data and statistics with the relevant ministries, especially the Ministry of Finance, before publishing, he said.