Restoring the damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah will require a further Rs 260 billion in 2027, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament, and a supplementary estimate was tabled immediately after the Budget speech to secure it.
Parliament previously approved a Rs 500 billion supplementary estimate for Ditwah restoration. The President said the portion of that money still unspent — he cited the Middle East war situation among the reasons for the underspend — will be carried forward and allocated as provisions for 2027, Hiru News reported.
A second estimate, outside the Budget
The carried-forward balance is not enough. Dissanayake said a further Rs 260 billion in budgetary provision must be secured for 2027 to complete the restoration work properly.
That money is being sought separately from the 2027 Budget he had just presented, through a supplementary estimate submitted under Section 16 of the Public Financial Management Act. The estimate was proposed for tabling in Parliament the same day, after the speech concluded.
Why the mechanism matters
Routing the request through a supplementary estimate rather than the Budget’s own expenditure heads means the Ditwah figure sits outside the headline numbers presented on Thursday. It is approved by a separate parliamentary vote, and the Public Financial Management Act framework is what governs that route.
The practical effect is that the full 2027 cost of the cyclone recovery is not contained in the Budget document alone.
Sourcing note
This item was carried by Hiru News among the outlets checked, in Sinhala. On budget day the newsrooms partition the speech into separate line-item filings, so a single outlet carrying one allocation is normal rather than a corroboration failure.
Not reported
The filing does not state how much of the original Rs 500 billion remains unspent, what the carried-forward balance plus Rs 260 billion totals, which districts or sectors the 2027 spending covers, or how the Middle East conflict specifically slowed disbursement.
