An average of 2,536 people were killed in road accidents each year between 2021 and 2025, Deputy Minister Hansaka Wijemuni told Parliament on Tuesday, the Daily Mirror reported.
An average of 32,483 people were injured in road accidents annually over the same five years, he said.
The Deputy Minister added that the country spends between 3% and 5% of its annual gross domestic product on caring for people injured on the roads.
What the figures amount to
Taken across the five-year period, the averages the Deputy Minister gave imply roughly 12,700 deaths and some 162,000 injuries between 2021 and 2025 — about seven deaths and 89 injuries a day.
The GDP figure is the striking one: a 3-5% share of national output spent on the care of road-injured patients would put the cost on the scale of a major budget line. It is the Deputy Minister’s own claim, and the filing offers nothing to check it against.
What was not said
The filing is brief and leaves the substance of the statement open. It does not say what question or debate the Deputy Minister was answering, which ministry he was speaking for, or what the source of the figures is — police statistics, hospital admissions or a separate study.
Nor does it break the averages down by year, so it does not show whether deaths are rising or falling across the period; give the split between pedestrians, motorcyclists and vehicle occupants; or explain what the 3-5% of GDP covers — direct medical treatment alone, or lost productivity and long-term care as well. No policy measure or target was reported alongside the figures.
A caution on comparison: road-casualty statistics are published on different bases by different agencies and recur in parliamentary answers with varying definitions. The figures above are specifically the five-year 2021-2025 averages as given to Parliament on 3 November, and should not be read against totals compiled on another basis.
This is a single-source report. No other verified newsroom had carried the statement at the time of writing.