Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa accused the government of building its policies on false data and of deceiving voters twice in recent years, speaking at a Samagi Jana Balawegaya membership drive meeting in the Rambewa area of the Medawachchiya electorate in Anuradhapura District on Thursday.
Premadasa said the country was driven into bankruptcy in 2019 through deception, and that society had been left “completely paralyzed” after a second deception in 2024. He said all 22 million people — farmers, fishermen, workers, entrepreneurs, women and children — were living under severe pressure, Ada Derana reported.
His central statistical claim concerned the Department of Census and Statistics, which he said had determined that Rs. 17,315 was enough for one person to meet their needs for 30 days — an assessment he said was also made at district level. Policy built on such a figure, he argued, rests on false data.
The figure he cited is three months old
The Rs. 17,315 figure is the department’s official poverty line for May. It was superseded in June, when the DCS raised the national line to Rs. 17,592, an increase of Rs. 277 on the May reading and 6.7% higher than a year earlier. The April line was Rs. 17,117.
The poverty line is not a government estimate of a comfortable living standard but a statistical threshold: the minimum monthly expenditure needed to meet basic needs, calculated from a specified basket of food and non-food consumption and re-estimated monthly. Neither outlet noted that the figure Premadasa quoted was out of date.
The promises listed
Premadasa said the government had pledged to buy paddy at Rs. 150 a kilogram but was paying around Rs. 120. Hiru News reported him adding that the Agriculture Minister had told Parliament it costs Rs. 137 to produce a kilogram — the same gap of Rs. 17 a kilo he set out at Galewela on 23 August.
He also listed three unfulfilled election pledges: a 33% cut in electricity tariffs, fuel priced on the cost of unloading at the port, and a Vitz car available for Rs. 1.2 million.
A second meeting the same day
At a separate membership meeting in the Elawaka area of the same electorate, Premadasa accused the government of giving farmers “stepmotherly treatment” and repeated the same pledges, adding a promise of low-priced motorcycles. Hiru News reported him saying 30% to 40% of the country is now poor, that factories were closing and relocating abroad, that no foreign direct investment was coming in, and that the government had failed to control the human-elephant conflict.
Neither meeting produced a government response.
