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By Sandun Jayawardana

The penultimate week of the Parliamentary debate of Budget 2026 was overshadowed by outside events as the disaster brought on by Cyclone ‘Ditwah’ forced lawmakers to pause the ongoing committee stage debate for two days.

With the extent of the disaster becoming clear, the Committee on Parliamentary Business which met on Thursday decided not to hold the budget debate on November 28 and 29 to allow MPs to apply themselves towards aiding relief efforts in their respective districts.  

Accordingly, the expenditure heads previously scheduled to be debated on those two dates, namely the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs were postponed. As per the revised committee stage programme, the debates on these expenditure heads will be held tomorrow (1) and on Tuesday (2). Parliament sessions on both days will continue until midnight to accommodate the debates on these expenditure heads as well as the heads of the Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development, which had already been scheduled to be held on these two days.

The House did meet briefly on Friday to approve orders published under an Extraordinary Gazette issued under the Public Debt Management Act without debate.

Pointing to the largescale destruction and the high number of deaths and displacements caused by the cyclone, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said the priority should be to save affected people who were trapped. He said the opposition too was prepared to do its part to help those affected by the disaster and urged the government to release more funds quicker to authorities in the affected districts so that they can help those in urgent need.

While thanking the opposition leader for his statement, Chief Government Whip Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa noted that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had also involved leaders of all political parties represented in Parliament in discussions concerning relief efforts. “Our aim as a government is to save the people of the country from this disaster as quickly as possible. On the one hand, a rescue operation has been launched to save those who have been trapped while on the other, a relief operation is also ongoing to help those who have been affected and to ensure they are in good health,” Dr. Jayatissa stated. He added that necessary funds have already been disbursed to District Secretaries in the affected regions, but stressed the government was prepared to provide more funding should the need arise.

Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) Batticaloa District MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam pointed out that the floodwaters that were flowing from upstream will flow out to sea from the Northern and Eastern provinces, specifically through districts such as Batticaloa and Ampara. The disaster for those districts will come over the weekend, he said. The MP also pointed out that though the government had sent funds to authorities in the districts to set up displacement camps, people were reluctant to evacuate to these camps as they feared their homes would be robbed if they did. He urged the government to look into resolving this matter immediately as it would be difficult to rescue people after they become trapped if they did not leave before the floodwaters come. The MP also requested the government to appoint “people with experience” as District Secretaries, adding that having political connections to the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) should not serve as a factor when selecting people to such positions.

During the debates that did take place this week, issues faced by farmers took center-stage when the committee stage debate on the expenditure head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation took place on Thursday. Opening the debate for the opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Ranjith Maddumabandara observed that the government had made many promises to farmers in its election manifesto, ‘A Thriving Nation, A Beautiful Life.’ Nevertheless, farmers are facing a severe crisis today owing to the inefficiency of the government, he claimed, adding that farmers in districts such as Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Monaragala were faced with great difficulties. Though 24% of the population identified farming as their livelihood, their contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product was just 8.1%, the SJB MP said. He accused the government of not taking any steps to improve the situation of the farmers in the year it’s been in power. “More than 150, 000 farmers have abandoned farming during the past year alone, while farming has stopped in 10% of farming land,” he claimed.

Today, the farmer has become the poorest person in the country. Even the fertiliser subsidy, the only subsidy he receives, is being reduced and is only being given for paddy, Mr. Madduma Bandara said. He contrasted this with what happened under the Yahapalana Government, when a sack of fertiliser was made available not just for paddy farmers, but to farmers who grew other crops as well for Rs. 1500. “But today, a sack of fertiliser is around Rs. 11,000-12,000 on the market. So how do you expect farmers to continue in this situation? Production is steadily declining.”

The opposition did not bring up a single instance of there being a shortage of any food item, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation, K. D. Lal Kantha said. This was evidence of the success of the Food Security Committee jointly managed by the Agriculture Ministry and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Trade, he insisted. There was also no mention of the price of any food item or food related item having skyrocketed. This is proof that the prices of food items in the country are fair, he argued. The government’s responsibility is to strengthen the economy of farmers while also maintaining food security, the minister further said. “We are doing a lot of work towards that. Not everything has been completed, but our Ministry has been allocated a large amount of funds in next year’s Budget to do this. We are going to implement it properly,” Minister Lal Kantha remarked.

Referring to the prevailing disaster situation, the minister also pointed to how some of the destruction has come about because successive governments had allowed people to illegally settle on dangerous and risky locations such as mountaintops, river basins and tank reserves. He pledged that the government will not let people to illegally settle on tank reserves and will relocate those who have settled inside those reserves to alternative lands, while giving them a chance at a better life. “We have to acknowledge that there has been improper settlement building, while people have also been settled improperly. We will give them the compensation and facilities necessary,” said the minister.