Funds collected under the “Rebuilding Sri Lanka” initiative remain entirely unutilised and are held in a separate account at the Treasury, officials from the Auditor General’s Department told the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) at a recent sitting.
COPF Chairman Harsha de Silva questioned whether the “fund” formally exists, citing transparency and accountability concerns. “We have seen reports on the ‘Rebuilding Sri Lanka’ fund, but to my knowledge, no such fund exists. Where have the donors’ funds been deposited? How is it audited?” he asked.
An official from the Auditor General’s Department said that although Cabinet took a decision in 2025 to establish the initiative, it had never been formally created as a statutory fund under the law. As a result, donations were deposited into a Deposit Account maintained by the General Treasury.
“All the money that came in is currently held in a special Treasury account. Not a single cent has been used,” the AG’s official told the committee, according to Newswire. The department said it had verified the account balance through audit procedures and confirmed the funds remained untouched as of the latest review.
De Silva stressed the initiative should not be referred to as a “fund” until it is formally established through the required legal process. Donor names and amounts contributed are publicly accessible on an official website, but COPF members questioned why the money has not been used for its intended purpose.
The COPF testimony sits awkwardly alongside Deputy Finance Minister Anil Jayantha Fernando’s April assurance that the Rebuilding Sri Lanka Fund holds Rs. 9.58bn and remains safe from 49 contributing countries. Institutional contributions on record include Rs. 300 million from People’s Bank and Rs. 9.6 million from Sri Lanka Police. The initiative was set up to support survivors of Cyclone Ditwah, which killed 646 people and caused $4.1 billion in damage in November 2025.
