Minister Samantha Vidyarathna has told an audience that the government is “still an infant” after two years in office and asked to be judged at the end of its five-year term, Hiru News reported on Sunday evening.
Speaking at a ceremony on Sunday (01), the minister said the government was already carrying out a substantial body of work to develop the country, that a great deal had been done in the past two years, and that the results would be visible to the public by the end of the five years.
His remarks were framed as a direct contrast with the previous administration:
“Ranil said he would build this country by 2048. Said he would give jobs. Said he would fix the economy. Said he would raise wages. This is 2026. The fertiliser subsidy is going up. Mahapola is going up. Coconut cultivation is growing. Kidney assistance is going up. New jobs are being given. Pay is going up.
“Back then they said this would only be built by 2048. By then a lot of people will be dead. We won’t be around. But we have started now. We said we would build a prosperous country and a good life. It has only been two years. The government is still an infant. Watch — by the time these five years are up, far more will have been done than this.”
The 2048 reference is to the long-horizon national development framing associated with former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, pegged to the centenary of independence. The minister’s characterisation of it is his own; the filing carries no response from Wickremesinghe or from his party.
What the claims are, and are not
The six items the minister listed — the fertiliser subsidy, Mahapola higher-education scholarships, coconut cultivation, assistance for kidney patients, new jobs and pay — are asserted in the present tense as things that are rising or growing. The filing attaches no figures, baselines or timeframes to any of them, and this desk has not verified them here. They are reported as the minister’s statement rather than as established outcomes.
Several fall within his own brief. Vidyarathna holds the plantation and community infrastructure portfolio in the National People’s Power government, and this desk has previously reported him directing the Coconut Research Institute to aim its work at problems coconut growers face in the field, and addressing plantation community livelihoods.
Not reported. The filing does not name the event the minister was addressing, where it was held, or who else spoke. It does not identify which fertiliser subsidy or Mahapola increases he was referring to, or whether any had been formally announced. No opposition response is recorded.
Sourcing note: this report rests on a single verified newsroom. A search for other coverage of the same remarks returned no second verified Sri Lankan newsroom carrying them at the time of writing.
