SJB MP Harsha de Silva accused the government of presenting a budget that betrays its election promises, warning that the 2026 Budget is built on “false narratives, joke allocations, and policy contradictions.” Speaking during the Budget debate on 8 November in Colombo, he argued that while macro-economic stability achieved by the previous administration had been maintained, the government had failed to present any viable plan for economic growth.
He said the Treasury was sitting on an unexpected cash surplus of nearly one trillion rupees, mainly generated from taxes on more than USD 1.4 billion in recent vehicle imports. Instead of using this windfall to provide relief, he claimed the government had widened the tax burden by lowering the VAT registration threshold from 5 million to 3.6 million rupees a month, which would directly affect small businesses. He further alleged that the government had agreed to implement a wide-ranging property tax by early 2027.
De Silva dismissed the government’s housing proposals as “a cruel joke,” noting that the allocation of 10.2 billion rupees for 7,000 houses translated to one million rupees per unit. With construction costs at around 10,000 rupees per square foot, he said the allocation could only build a 100-square-foot structure. He levelled similar criticism at the concessional housing loan scheme for state employees, arguing that the 500 million rupee allocation was only sufficient for 416 of the country’s 1.4 million public sector workers.
He said the government’s rhetoric on “system change” was contradicted by its plan to borrow 3.8 trillion rupees in 2026, including 3,110 billion rupees domestically and 700 billion rupees from abroad. He warned that the rupee had begun to weaken again, falling to 307 against the dollar after stabilising at 294 under the previous administration.
De Silva charged that the budget failed young people who had been promised jobs, tax relief and support for freelancers. He said the government had backtracked on its pledge to raise the tax-free income threshold to 200,000 rupees, and instead imposed a new 15 per cent tax on online freelancers who previously paid none. He added that the promised Relief Bank for SMEs had not materialised, leaving small millers vulnerable to what he described as an increasingly dominant “rice mafia.”
The MP also challenged the government’s Foreign Direct Investment claims, saying more than half of the reported USD 823 million reflected old projects initiated by previous administrations, including the Adani Port development. He warned that exporters were struggling after the removal of SVAT, with the promised 45-day VAT refund mechanism failing to function.
He highlighted procurement concerns, citing an alleged irregularity in a tender for 1,775 double-cabs where the mandatory bid period was reportedly reduced from 42 days to 12. He further accused the government of neglecting senior citizens by failing to advance a pension scheme for the non-formal sector and by allegedly agreeing with the IMF to end the interest subsidy on fixed deposits by the end of this year, a detail he said was omitted from the budget speech.
De Silva concluded that the 2026 Budget was not a platform for genuine reform but a document of broken promises that ignored the needs of young people, senior citizens and vital economic sectors.
