Batticaloa District MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam has asked the Government to disclose the revenue, tax liabilities and outstanding arrears of hotels in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, telling Parliament that local councils are being deprived of revenue legally due to them while large operators profit from land in the regions, the Daily FT reported.

He said comprehensive information on major hotels — their revenues, tax liabilities and contributions to local authorities — was not being made available to Parliament. Without it, he argued, the House could not assess whether tourism establishments were meeting their legal and financial obligations, and the Government could not credibly claim tourism was benefiting local communities without showing where the revenue was going.

What he asked to be tabled

Rasamanickam sought district-wise data on hotels and tourist accommodation registered or licensed with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, together with annual figures from 2018 to 2026 on establishments that had paid the Tourism Development Levy.

For each establishment he asked for room capacity, annual revenue, applicable tax rates, tax liabilities, actual payments and outstanding arrears — and the number of Sri Lankan and foreign employees.

He also questioned how tourism performance is measured at all. Performance is largely judged by arrivals, he noted, while revenue is estimated from assumptions about average length of stay and daily spending. He asked the Government to submit annual 2018–2026 data on arrivals, length of stay, average daily expenditure and estimated revenue, and to disclose the sources used and any later revisions.

The case on Batticaloa’s councils

His sharpest concern was his own district. Hotels and tourism establishments in Batticaloa had failed to make payments legally due to Pradeshiya Sabhas, the rural local councils, he said. Several of those councils were already in serious financial difficulty, and the shortfall further weakened their ability to deliver essential services.

He questioned the fairness of small traders being expected to meet their tax obligations while payments from major hotel operators remained outstanding, and said Pradeshiya Sabhas should not be treated merely as institutions responsible for garbage collection — they should be strengthened financially by receiving the revenue owed to them.

The Minister’s response. Tourism Minister Vijitha Herath said Pradeshiya Sabhas had the legal authority to act under the relevant tax legislation. He acknowledged that problems existed in relation to taxation, and said steps were being taken to amend the applicable laws.

A COPF inquiry into state land

Rasamanickam asked for an investigation into extensive state land allocated in the Eastern Province during former minister Basil Rajapaksa’s tenure. Substantial extents, in some cases several acres, had gone to private companies and politically connected individuals, he said. He called for Parliament’s Committee on Public Finance to examine whether the beneficiaries were meeting their tax and other financial obligations, with action taken where necessary.

He further sought district-wise figures on funds allocated to and actually spent on tourism development in the North and East, including the projects implemented and the institutions responsible — with spending on archaeological sites separated from infrastructure that directly supports local tourism businesses.

Conditions before new tourism zones

To ensure benefits reach local communities, he proposed enforceable conditions on local employment, local procurement and community benefits, applied before new tourism zones are established or state land is allocated for hotels, with annual district-wise compliance reports.

He noted that the President had recently visited Batticaloa and highlighted the potential for new tourism destinations along the district’s coast, and urged the Government to turn that into properly planned projects creating jobs for coastal communities. He also questioned the role of an official representing the tourism authorities in the Valaichchenai area.

The greeting question

Rasamanickam raised one point he conceded might appear minor. Star-class hotels in the North and East had traditionally welcomed guests with the Tamil greeting “Vanakkam”, he said, but were increasingly using the Sinhala “Ayubowan”. Respecting regional languages and traditions, he argued, was part of responsible tourism development.

Herath agreed that “Vanakkam” was equally appropriate, and said instructions could be issued encouraging hotels in the regions to use Tamil greetings — including “Kaalai Vanakkam” (good morning) and “Maalai Vanakkam” (good evening).

Concluding, Rasamanickam said tourism success should be measured not only by arrivals, hotel construction or estimated national revenue, but by the jobs created for local residents, the opportunities for small businesses, the taxes paid to local authorities and the benefits reaching surrounding communities.

Not reported

The filing gives no figures — it reports a request for data, not the data itself. No arrears total is stated for any district, no hotel or operator is named, and no number is given for how many establishments are in arrears or for how long.

The Daily FT does not say whether the Minister committed to tabling the information sought, gave any timeframe, or identified which laws are to be amended or when. It does not report whether the Committee on Public Finance has agreed to take up the state-land question, and it does not name the official in Valaichchenai whose role was questioned. No response from the hotel industry or from the Tourism Development Authority is reported.

The Daily FT places the sitting “yesterday” relative to its Saturday 10 October edition, which puts it on Friday 9 October; it does not date the sitting explicitly.

On sourcing. This article rests on a single verified newsroom. A related report of a Rasamanickam call for a probe into unpaid hotel taxes in the Pasikudah tourism zone appears on island.lk, but that page could not be retrieved in a usable form — one fetch route returned the body of an unrelated article — so it could neither be dated nor confirmed as an account of this same sitting. It is therefore not cited here.