Category: Daily Financial Times

Pan Asia Bank recently marked a significant milestone in its journey of excellence and innovation with the official launch of a commemorative postage stamp to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

The special edition stamp, issued in collaboration with the Department of Posts, symbolises the Bank’s three decades of trusted service and its commitment to driving sustainable financial growth in Sri Lanka. This milestone holds national significance, reflecting the Bank’s deep-rooted presence in the country’s financial landscape and its ongoing contribution to Sri Lanka’s economic development.

The launch event was held under the patronage of Chairman Aravinda Perera and Director/CEO Naleen Edirisinghe with the participation of distinguished guests, members of the Bank’s Board, senior management, and officials from the Department of Posts.

Speaking at the ceremony, Perera reflected on the Bank’s journey, stating, ‘This commemorative stamp is a tribute to the trust our customers have placed in us over the past three decades. From humble beginnings, Pan Asia Bank has grown into one of Sri Lanka’s most progressive and customer-focused financial institutions, guided by a vision of innovation, integrity, and inclusivity.’

Director/CEO Edirisinghe said: ‘This stamp represents the story of our customers, employees, and partners who have been part of Pan Asia Bank’s remarkable journey. Every milestone we’ve reached has been possible because of their trust and belief in us. As we celebrate 30 years, we look ahead with renewed purpose, to continue being a bank that listens, innovates, and serves with heart.’

Over the past 30 years, Pan Asia Bank said it has continued to pioneer customer-centric financial solutions, promote sustainability in banking, and support Sri Lanka’s economic progress. The commemorative stamp serves as both a reflection of the Bank’s enduring legacy and a celebration of its continued journey toward a more resilient and inclusive financial future, it added.

National Sales Average (NSA) of tea for October has declined Month-on-Month (MoM) though reflecting an increase Year-on-Year (YoY), according to Forbes and Walker Ltd.

It said NSA in October declined by Rs. 14.48 to Rs. 1,177.14 per kilo (by $ 0.07 to $ 3.87) as against September average of Rs. 1,191.62 ($ 3.94).

In comparison to the October 2024 average of Rs. 1,172.15 ($ 3.99), was an increase of Rs. 4.99 and $ 0.12.

Total NSA year to date was Rs. 1,161.99 ($ 3.87), a decline of Rs. 74.93 ($ 0.21) against the corresponding year’s average of Rs. 1,236.92 ($ 4.08).

High Grown average for the month recorded a decline of Rs. 8.57 and $ 0.05 month on month, whilst an increase of Rs. 19.48 and a decrease of $ 0.07 was witnessed against the corresponding month in 2024.

Medium Grown average for the month recorded a positive variance of Rs. 3.43 and decrease of $ 0.01 month on month. In comparison to the corresponding monthly average last year, shows an increase of Rs. 13.06 and decrease of $ 0.08.

Low Grown average for the month recorded a decrease of Rs. 19.66 and $ 0.09 month on month, whilst against the corresponding average of October 2024 shows a decrease of Rs. 1.11 and $ 0.15.

Forbes and Walker said all regions recorded negative variances during the period January-October 2025 in comparison to the cumulative corresponding period of 2024 in both LKR and USD terms.

Export earnings from tea in September rose by 17% to $ 137 million and by 9.8% to $ 1.16 billion in the first nine months according to the Sri Lanka Export Development Board data.

With artificial intelligence (AI) redefining industries worldwide, a group of Sri Lankan women professionals recently came together calling for greater inclusion and leadership opportunities for women in the country’s tech space.

This discussion took place at the Women in Tech – Chapter Reignite, which brought together leaders from Government, industry, and start-ups to discuss how Sri Lanka could build a more inclusive digital economy. It was organised by the Sri Lankan Chapter of Women in Tech, a global non-profit dedicated to empowering women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The event marked the chapter’s relaunch and focused on digital readiness, competitiveness, and preparing women to lead in the AI-driven future. Among those present were Digital Economy Ministry ICT Director Chanaki Mallikarachchi, Women in Tech Sri Lanka Chapter Country Director and Ambassador Sanali Kaushalya, and other industry leaders.

Kaushalya highlighted that the chapter relaunch was meant to ‘reignite our passion, our purpose and our power to create lasting impact in the Sri Lanka tech ecosystem.

She noted that although women made up a significant share of graduates in science and engineering, the numbers of women pursuing IT and technology was far less. The gap represented lost potential that could have driven innovation, inclusion, and the digital economy,’ she said.

‘This is not just about technology, it is about creating an ecosystem where women are not just participants but leaders, innovators and decision makers. Our mission is to make sure their contributions are recognised and celebrated and multiplied,’ she said.

The panel discussion was a wide-ranging conversation on what it means for Sri Lanka to enter the age of AI and who got to shape it. It featured 99x COO and SLASSCOM Chairperson Shehani Seneviratne, The Makers Global Founder and CEO Nevindaree Premarathne, Fortude Chief People Officer Oshana Dias, and ADA South Asia Regional Head Sanjini Munaweera, moderated by Loons Lab Founder and CEO Pulani Ranasinghe.

‘AI is something that everyone needs to embrace, whether it’s at the elementary level or whether in business. you need to innovate to stay relevant. I also strongly believe in inclusion, that no one should be left behind in this journey of AI and innovation,’ said Seneviratne.

Highlighting how digital transformation in Sri Lanka was gathering momentum, she commented on the Government’s digital economy roadmap which aims to grow from $ 3 billion to $ 12 billion by 2030. Seneviratne said that once the digital public infrastructure was in place, it was up to the private sector to build on it.

‘Everyone’s contribution is required. We should also look at how to position Sri Lanka uniquely in the AI space. timing is critical,’ she noted.

Premarathne also spoke on the global race for technology and how Sri Lanka could position itself. She explained that there were certain industries and countries fighting over AI infrastructure, stressing that it was crucial that Sri Lanka strategises suitably. She added that Sri Lanka’s strategy ‘as a country, as a nation’ remained unclear and must move from discussion to implementation.

She highlighted that this global moment was also significant for women, saying that while now machines could handle the heavy analytical and repetitive tasks, they still could not replicate human ambition or creativity. She added that being human therefore remained central to this era, where women could take on roles as innovators, operators, and leaders.

‘If you don’t contribute what you believe, what you’re thinking and your perceptions, how can you expect AI solutions to work for you? Your voice has to be there.’ Where AI makes decisions based on what it is fed, AI was a space of inclusivity where women could find equal opportunity, Premarathne said.

With 12 years of experience in tech, Dias had seen progress within the industry, but there was ‘still a long way to go.’ She explained that while both men and women needed to be part of the conversation, a stronger pipeline of women entering and staying in tech was essential. Additionally, open discussions were also important to understand why women dropped out of tech, Dias said.

‘Events and organisations like this provide that networking opportunity. But we also need to ensure that the different voices are heard and we need to do more because Colombo is just one part of Sri Lanka,’ she said, urging that the discussion and empowerment needed to move beyond Colombo.

When focusing on inclusion, localisation was also important, said Munaweera. She explained that many AI tools and datasets were heavily influenced by other countries, making them less relevant for creative and marketing industries in Sri Lanka.

‘We need to bring our culture and heritage out into the open. We need to use these tools to their full potential, but we don’t have enough data sets. That should be one of the very first priorities,’ she advised.

The panel emphasised that in improving inclusivity, women must actively engage with AI, continuously self-learn, and seize equal opportunity to bridge the gender gap in tech, noting that it would elevate their professional roles. The speakers added that women needed confidence, preparation, and mindset to match technical spaces dominated by men, using AI as a tool for empowerment, creativity, and leadership rather than fear or hesitation.

HDFC Bank has appointed Shiroma Nandani to its Board as a Non-Executive Independent Director.

Nandani is a Grade I Officer of the Sri Lanka Accountancy Service with over 20 years of experience in the public sector. She currently serves as Chief Accountant at the Ministry of Labour.

She has extensive expertise in public sector finance, particularly in local government financial management, and has previously served as Municipal Treasurer of the Colombo Municipal Council.

Nandani holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Special) with Second Upper Class Honours from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Kelaniya. She is also a member of the Association of Public Finance Accountants of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka.

Dr. Saman Weerasinghe has been awarded the ‘Order of Friendship’ (Orden Druzhby) by Russian President Vladimir Putin at Kremlin, Moscow.

The honour, one of Russia’s highest civilian distinctions, recognises his decades of dedication to strengthening diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties between Sri Lanka and Russia.

Dr. Weerasinghe is the only Asian recipient of the award in 2025, marking a proud milestone for Sri Lanka’s global diplomatic presence.

A graduate of the Moscow Medical Academy with Honours, Dr. Weerasinghe served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2015 – 2018) and currently holds the roles of General Secretary of the Sri Lanka-Russia Friendship Society and Chairman of the Centre of the Russian Geographical Society in Colombo. His leadership has fostered cultural exchange, scientific collaboration, and enduring goodwill between the two nations.

99x continues to advance the frontier of innovation through its specialised 99x Yantra Labs team, focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), embedded systems, and sensor-based applications. The team’s latest developments include use cases such as sensors that guide optimal solar panel placement, extending CCTV feeds to detect fire hazards, and several other bespoke customer engagements.

99x Chief Technology Officer – Product Engineering Sachith Perera said, ‘We have seen a strong growth trend among customers who offer solutions integrated with IoT sensors or embedded hardware devices. Some of these platforms require sub-millisecond response times that cannot be achieved using software alone. This requires embedding the decision logic into the hardware and building custom components to enable these response times.’

Technical Architect Dilshan Jayakody, heads the Yantra Labs unit at 99x. Having over 20 years of experience in firmware development and low-level driver design, his automatic fluid level controller was honoured by Microchip Technologies Magazine as its featured project in September 2025. In October, Yantra Labs also hosted a customer visit from Norwegian Subsea, where Tonja Joseph, an Embedded Software Engineer, was in Sri Lanka for two weeks to collaborate with the embedded systems and IoT teams.

Dilshan shared, ‘Conventional fire detection systems rely primarily on smoke or heat sensors mounted on ceilings. While widely adopted, these systems are inherently reactive as they only trigger after smoke or heat has reached the sensors.’

‘Our innovation addresses this gap by leveraging computer vision and machine learning to detect visual cues of fire or smoke before traditional sensors respond. Processing camera feeds on the Jetson Orin NX at the edge enables real-time detection without relying on cloud latency.’

‘We have also built a solution to address the impact of shading on solar panel installations. When there is partial or severe shading on one panel, it creates a bottleneck that reduces overall performance across connected modules, resulting in a 10-30% energy loss depending on local conditions.’

‘Our Solar Shading Analyser solves these issues through a data-driven, site-specific approach that optimises layouts using solar data loggers equipped with GPS modules, pyranometers, and LoRa (long-range) mesh networks to collect and analyse solar intensity data, modelling shading patterns to recommend the best panel layout.’

The Cabinet of Ministers at their meeting on Monday approved a proposal to utilise State funds to complete the remaining section of the Maharagama-Piliyandala road after the OPEC Fund for International Development loan was found insufficient to cover the full project cost.

A loan agreement worth $ 50 million was signed with the OPEC Fund to upgrade 46 kilometres of national roads in the Colombo District. Among these, the 6.7 kilometre Maharagama-Piliyandala road was identified as the final project under the loan.

‘While 1 kilometre of the road has already been renovated, work on 4 kilometres (Sections A and C) has begun under three project packages. However, authorities identified that the remaining 1.7 kilometre (Section B) could not be completed due to the loan balance being insufficient,’ Cabinet Spokesman Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa told journalists at the post-Cabinet meeting media briefing on Tuesday.

He said to ensure project completion, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal by Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister Bimal Rathnayake to fund the renovation of the remaining 1.7 kilometres using Government funds, thereby finalising the long-delayed road development project.

Sri Lanka Insurance Life (SLIC Life), the nation’s largest and strongest Life Insurer, is pleased to announce the appointment of Nalin Subasinghe as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective 3rd November 2025.

Mr. Subasinghe brings over 21 years of extensive experience in the insurance industry, with a distinguished track record spanning both Life and General Insurance, including 15 years in C-Suite leadership positions. His career began with Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation in 2004, where he served as Deputy General Manager – Actuarial and Risk Management, and also held the role of Head of Investment. He also represented SLIC as the Nominee Director at Capital Alliance Investments Limited and Ceylon Asset Management Limited.

Prior to his current appointment, he held the position of Chief Actuarial Officer/General Manager at HNB Assurance PLC, HNB General Insurance Limited. He has also served as the Chief Actuarial Officer/General Manager at Union Assurance PLC (Vice President, John Keells Holdings PLC).

In addition to his corporate leadership roles, Mr. Subasinghe has made significant contributions to the actuarial profession and local insurance industry. He is currently the Vice President of the Actuarial Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) and has served as Chairman of the Actuarial Sub-committee of the Insurance Association of Sri Lanka (IASL).

Mr. Subasinghe holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Degree in Finance Business and Computational Mathematics from the University of Colombo and a Master of Science Degree in Actuarial Management from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.

Sri Lanka Insurance Life, with over six decades of excellence as the largest government-owned life insurer, manages an asset base of Rs. 264 billion and the largest Life Fund in the industry at Rs. 239 billion. It is the only life insurer in the country to hold a Fitch Rating of A+ (lka) for long-term financial stability and has been recognized as the ‘Most Loved Life Insurance Brand’ for the eighth consecutive year. Continuing its journey of growth and transformation, SLIC Life remains committed to innovation, customer trust, and delivering lasting value to policyholders and the nation.

The NPP Government will be presenting its first full-year Budget for 2026 tomorrow, outlining its policy priorities for an economy continuing to suffer under severe austerity. Education has been repeatedly highlighted as a priority for the Government, with promises of an increased allocation for the sector in the upcoming Budget. Increasing public spending on education incrementally to the desired level of 6% of GDP during the Government’s tenure was a promise made in the NPP’s election manifesto.

Sri Lanka’s free public education system has contributed to achieving higher literacy, wellbeing and lower inequality for the country. Free education has ensured greater access and higher educational achievements for girls. Given that an education reform process is also underway, the allocations for public education in the upcoming Budget will be of great importance and interest to many. Thus, a closer look at the education Budget is imperative.

NPP’s 2025 Budget for Education

The NPP Government presented its 2025 Budget in February this year. During the parliamentary debates that followed, it was claimed that historically high allocations were made for education. The Government had allocated Rs. 619 billion for education in 2025, with general education being the largest recipient of Rs. 456.6 billion, followed by university education (Rs. 135.3 billion) and vocational education (Rs. 15.4 billion).

A greater part of the education Budget was spent on recurrent costs such as salaries, school meal program, textbooks and uniforms amounting to a total of Rs. 520.1 billion. While salaries make up a great portion of the Budget, school teacher salaries remain low with increments stalled for more than 25 years. The teacher unions staged protests in 2021 to demand that salary increments agreed upon in the Subodhini Report be paid out in full. This is yet to be implemented. Teachers were also excluded from recent salary revisions for the public sector.

Rs. 98.9 billion was allocated as capital expenditure, mainly focused on infrastructure development. A larger portion of the education Budget was distributed to schools through the provincial councils, while some Budget lines such as pre-school meals, teacher allowances and season tickets were administered through other ministries.

These Budget allocations do not reflect actual expenditure into education for the year. However, it provides us with an understanding of areas the Government has prioritised within the sector. As of 2025, the Government appears to be prioritising pre-school education, which is a welcome initiative.

Contrary to the Government’s claim, the education allocation for 2025 did not amount to a historically high figure. Based on Budget predictions for Sri Lanka’s GDP growth in 2025, this allocation of Rs. 619 billion is a mere 1.86% of GDP. During the 1960s and 1970s, public spending for education on average reached 4% of GDP and in the last decade, the highest spending for education was in 2016 with 2.1% of GDP. Historically high allocation for Sri Lanka’s public education, of 5.16% of GDP occurred decades ago in 1972.

Far from being historically high, this allocation is in line with the gradual slump in education spending since the 1977 shift in economic policies. In fact, the increase in the 2025 Budget from the previous year was only 0.1% of GDP. If the Government is serious about its promise to raise education spending to 6% of GDP, the annual increase in the education Budget will need to be significantly higher.

Misconceptions about the Education Budget

Misconceptions about the education Budget often led to taunts such as ‘tax-payers’ money being wasted on education’. These then lead to arguments favouring the privatisation of education. However, a closer look at the education Budget reveals that the allocations for education have been dismal compared to spending in other sectors in Sri Lanka and when compared with other countries globally.

Sri Lanka’s education spending in the last decade has averaged below 2% of GDP, thus holding the unfortunate place of being one of the countries spending least on education as per World Bank statistics. With such low priority for education, how does Sri Lanka hope to position itself in relation to the rest of the world? Sri Lanka’s public spending on education has been the lowest in South Asia in the last several years, way below the average education spending of 2.9 % of GDP in South Asia. This may, in the near future, lead to Sri Lanka losing its position as a country with higher human development indicators in the region.

In 2025, the amount allocated to education was 12% of the Government’s projected revenue. A recent report by Human Rights Watch has highlighted the impact of the deterioration of tax revenues on education spending and how it contributes to rising inequality in the country. The report also proposed that a 3.5% wealth tax targeted at the richest 0.5% of the population can easily fund half of the education Budget.

Currently, tax revenues are raised mainly through indirect taxation, where low-income households, primarily reliant on public education, contribute a larger share of public revenue. In spite of this, the lack of political will of successive governments has led to the crisis of funding for education. If public education is a priority for the NPP Government as it has claimed, it should take seemingly bold but commonsensical steps to finance the education Budget, such as implementing a wealth tax.

Yet another misconception about the education Budget is that it is spent exclusively on the free public education system. On the contrary, a portion of the Budget is allocated to providing no-interest loans for students in non-state higher education institutions, funding fee-levying public institutions, equity payments for public-private partnerships and for absorbing failed attempts at private initiatives such as SAITM. In fact, the proportion of the education Budget allocated to educational institutions that charge for education is doubled from Rs. 7 billion in 2024 to Rs. 14 billion in 2025. Not only does this take away valuable support for free education, but the cost of privatisation and the dismantling of free education are being borne by taxpayers who cannot afford fees for education.

Sources of Funding for Education

How funds are raised for the Budget influences the allocations and priorities set for education. In its initial days, the free education system was largely funded through the surplus made by the export crops in the plantation sector. The dark irony was that the children of plantation workers were denied access to public education until decades later. Since the late 1980s the education Budget has been financed by both domestic and foreign financing. Even though a larger percentage was derived from Government revenue, the entry of international financial institutions has restricted the space for Governments to formulate their own policies. Foreign funders have influenced Sri Lanka’s education sector to steer it towards their prescribed ideological goals of privatisation and profit.

External funders currently provide loan-based support. Among them, the World Bank (WB) has contributed the most to education sector projects since 1989. In the 2025 Budget there was one active WB project – General Education Modernisation Project (Rs. 4.3 billion). Currently, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the biggest funder in the education sector, supporting the Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program (Rs. 2.4 billion) and Science and Technology Human Resource Development Project (Rs. 12.3 billion). Other donors such as OPEC and the Fund for International Development (OFID) and bi-lateral donors such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have also contributed to the 2025 education development projects. Recently, the Education Minister confirmed that India will also be investing in teacher training and innovative education programs under the new reforms.

The timeframe for such foreign funded projects is typically 5 to 15 years with successive Governments having to implement projects, even if they rejected it when they were the opposition. The education reforms announced in July 2025 is an example of this pattern in executing education policy. These reforms are based on a process that began in 2019, sustained by successive Governments and supported by the ADB project, with an allocation specifically to operationalise the National Education Policy Framework in the 2025 Budget.

The assistance provided by multilateral and bilateral donors has been mostly in the form of loans which have to be paid back with interest. These loans from donors such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank cannot even be restructured under the debt restructuring program. The Government is mandated to pay in full, even if the projects have failed to deliver.

The underfunding of public education and the growing cost of education has led to an increase in out-of-pocket education expenses for families on boarding, private tuition, books, stationeries and transport. After the economic crisis, the number of school dropouts and absenteeism have increased. Parents are finding it hard to support their children’s education due to increased food, transport and stationery costs.

Determinants of equal education goes beyond the space of the education Budget. Ensuring families have access to affordable and adequate nutrition, steady livelihoods, comfortable living conditions and a school close to their communities are all imperative to provide educational justice for all.

What are we looking for in the 2026 Education Budget?

The education allocations for next year will be announced tomorrow with the 2026 Budget. We will be scrutinising the Budget to gauge if the Government has addressed the glaring underfunding for education by a significant increase in the percentage of GDP allocated to education to realistically address the promise of gradually achieving 6% of GDP allocations for education. Will the allocations address the inequalities within the system and include proposals to reduce the increasing burden of educational costs borne by families or will they continue to reflect the ideological priorities of the donors and International Financial Institutions? Will the Budget proposals contribute to strengthening the free education system or steer it towards more fee-levying programs and privatisation of the education sector?

Top legal expert and National Procurement Commission (NPC) Member Dr. Asanga Gunawansa on Tuesday cautioned that Sri Lanka risks creating a maze of overlapping regulatory authorities and legal inconsistencies in its approach to public-private partnerships (PPPs) and procurement, unless urgent steps are taken to align and streamline its institutional framework.

Speaking at a high-level forum in Colombo titled ‘PPP: Partnership and Prosperity for People’ organised by the High Commission of India, in collaboration with The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), Dr. Gunawansa described the current phase as the ‘reincarnation’ of the NPC, first introduced through the 19th Amendment, abolished under the 20th, and revived through the 21st Amendment.

Under Article 161 of the Constitution, the Commission has now been constitutionally empowered with a clear mandate to issue guidelines, documentation, and information related to the procurement of goods, works, and services.

He noted that this marks a significant shift from earlier practices, where procurement guidelines were issued by the National Procurement Agency functioning under the Ministry of Finance, without the force of law.

‘Those guidelines did not have the teeth of legislation,’ he explained, adding that despite judicial pronouncements by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court giving them the effect of law, they lacked formal constitutional authority.

‘Now, under the 21st Amendment, procurement guidelines are given a Constitutional mandate. Although they are called guidelines, they are effectively law,’ he observed.

However, Dr. Gunawansa raised a crucial question whether the NPC’s purview extends to PPPs. ‘PPPs, by definition, involve private investment in public projects. While there is a procurement aspect in selecting a private partner, it remains unclear whether PPPs fall squarely within the Commission’s mandate,’ he said.

The National Procurement Guidelines, introduced in December 2024 and effective from 1 January 2025, include a definition of PPPs, but he pointed out that their coverage is limited because PPPs traditionally fall under the purview of the National Agency for Public Private Partnerships (NAPPP).

Complicating matters further, Dr. Gunawansa noted that Sri Lanka recently enacted the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, which contains specific sections (40-45) dealing with PPPs. The Act assigns the oversight of PPPs to the Ministry of Finance and empowers it to issue regulations and establish a Public Investment Committee (PIC) as a supervisory body; though, he said, it has not yet been set up.

‘This new law also stipulates that in the event of any conflict between the PFM Act and another law on the same subject, the PFM Act will supersede,’ he warned.

According to him, the forthcoming PPP Act, meanwhile, assigns similar supervisory and regulatory powers to the NAPPP. When combined with the NPC’s constitutional powers under the 21st Amendment and the Finance Ministry’s authority under the PFM Act, Sri Lanka now faces what Dr. Gunawansa described as ‘four parallel entities with overlapping powers.’

‘The Ministry of Finance, the Public Investment Committee, the National Agency for Public Private Partnerships and the National Procurement Commission – all have mandates that touch upon PPPs and procurement. If each of these entities begins issuing its own guidelines, we will end up with a ‘fruit salad situation’ where no investor will be able to clearly understand Sri Lanka’s PPP architecture,’ he cautioned.

He stressed that while the PPP Act is still at the drafting stage, this is the critical moment to align mandates and clarify responsibilities.

‘We must sit down with all relevant stakeholders, including the National Procurement Commission, and iron out these issues before the law is enacted. Otherwise, once the law comes into effect, the confusion will multiply,’ he warned.

Dr. Gunawansa also pointed out that relying on judicial review is not a practical solution to fix legislative inconsistencies.

‘Some may say these issues can be challenged in the Supreme Court. But the Court’s attention is usually drawn to specific sections on human rights or sustainable development – not on the economic or institutional implications. So, it is the responsibility of the drafters to identify and resolve these overlaps before enactment,’ he emphasised.

Another area of concern he raised was the accuracy of legislative translations. Noting that most laws are drafted in English, he said that those then get translated into Sinhala and Tamil. However, the Constitution stipulates that in the event of inconsistency between the three languages, the Sinhala text will prevail.

‘This means the translation, not the original English draft, becomes the law. Therefore, it is critical that the Sinhala version be reviewed meticulously by those who prepared the original English draft, especially the legal consultants, to ensure that the original intent of the law is not lost or misrepresented,’ he explained.

Dr. Gunawansa urged policymakers to adopt a cautious and coordinated approach when framing Sri Lanka’s PPP and procurement laws.

‘We must put our house in order first. Without clarity, consistency and legal precision, we risk deterring the very investors we seek to attract,’ he opined.