Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna MP Namal Rajapaksa has written to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake asking that the 2027 Budget carry provisions to employ unemployed graduates — and has built the request entirely out of the governing party’s own election manifesto.
The letter cites pledges made in the National People’s Power 2024 presidential election manifesto, “A Thriving Nation — A Beautiful Life,” specifically in the chapter titled “An Efficient Workforce — A Dignified Professional Life,” Hiru News reported.
The pledges he is quoting back
Rajapaksa lists the commitments set out in that chapter:
- 20,000 graduates recruited to the teaching service
- 3,000 STEM and 9,000 non-STEM graduates to the IT sector
- 3,000 graduates across Inland Revenue, Customs, the Foreign Service and Tourism
Those total 35,000 placements. He asks the government to allocate the provisions needed to fulfil the promises for all currently unemployed graduates, and to carry out the programme within a clear timeframe — the second request being the sharper of the two, since it seeks a schedule rather than a line item.
The letter itself
Hiru published an image of the letter alongside its report. It is written on Parliament letterhead and dated 2026.10.06, addressed to the President at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo 01, and signed by Rajapaksa as a Member of Parliament.
The document also contains material that does not appear in the English report. Below the manifesto pledges, the letter sets out a second list citing graduate-recruitment programmes run in 2005, 2011 and 2012 — covering, in order, a graduate employment programme, the recruitment of graduates to the development officer and development assistant service, and the absorption of graduates into state service. The years correspond to the administrations in which his father, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was President. The letter is, in other words, making a comparative claim about delivery as well as a budgetary request.
The circumstances it was written in
Rajapaksa is currently in remand custody. He was produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court on the same Tuesday the letter is dated and further remanded until 16 October in the Rs. 70 million Krrish bribery investigation, with a ruling on bail set for that date.
Hiru’s report does not mention his custody status. It is material context for a letter written to the head of state on parliamentary letterhead, and readers encountering the story without it would reasonably assume the MP was at liberty.
Not reported
The filing does not say how the letter was transmitted from remand custody, whether it has been acknowledged by the Presidential Secretariat, or whether copies went to the Finance Ministry or the Treasury. There is no response from the government, from the NPP, or from the President’s office, and no official figure is given for how many of the 35,000 pledged placements have been filled in the two years since the manifesto was published — the number against which the request would have to be judged.
Nothing is reported on the current total of registered unemployed graduates, on when the 2027 Budget is to be presented, or on whether Rajapaksa has raised the matter in Parliament. The letter’s references to the 2005, 2011 and 2012 programmes are taken from the published image of the document and are not described in the accompanying English report; the recruitment totals under those earlier programmes are not stated.
