President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told a rally in Gampaha that a former head of state requested 16 cooks after leaving office, in an apparent reference to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
“Former Presidents were provided with residences, offices and large fleets of vehicles. One former President who was in office before me requested 16 cooks after retirement. I wonder whether he was planning to open a restaurant after retirement,” Dissanayake said.
He said his government had not provided a single cook to any former President since taking office, and that the National People’s Power had shifted the political culture from one built on privileges and benefits to one centred on public service. Former Presidents, he said, had imposed a considerable burden on the public.
The claim is not new
The remark is a return to a line Dissanayake first used in October 2024, weeks after taking office. In a public rally on 19 October 2024, he said he had refused a request from Wickremesinghe for privileges that included 16 chefs, 163 security personnel, 30 umbrellas and more than 20 vehicles, and said the former President would instead be entitled to three vehicles under existing regulations.
At that time he also said the government would introduce legislation to stop former Presidents being maintained from public funds, and that two ambulances stationed at the residences of Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had been recalled.
Monday’s Gampaha remarks repeat the cooks figure without the accompanying detail, and Daily Mirror’s report does not indicate that any new documentation has emerged.
Wickremesinghe has not responded to the latest remarks. The figures have been attributed throughout to the President and have not been independently verified against any official record of the request.
The Gampaha rally is the same event at which Dissanayake said a property tax would not appear in the government’s third budget.
