Sri Lanka’s elevation into a formal regional security grouping has exposed a domestic institutional gap, a former senior official warned on Sunday, calling on the government to urgently appoint a National Security Advisor.
Dinouk Colombage, who served as Director of International Affairs to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, welcomed India’s announcement that the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) will be upgraded to a full international organisation. But he said the absence of a dedicated National Security Advisor (NSA) in Sri Lanka left a structural weakness just as the country prepares to assume a more prominent regional security role.
“Legislation was drafted during former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s tenure to institutionalize the Office of the National Security Advisor. The government must implement this vital legislation to ensure the country benefits completely from the CSC,” Colombage said in a statement.
He noted that without an NSA in place, the Secretary of Defence has been forced to perform both roles — a workaround that leaves Sri Lanka without a single, clearly-designated interlocutor when coordinating with counterparts across the Indian Ocean member states.
The CSC brings together India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Mauritius and Seychelles, and is moving from an informal consultative mechanism between national security advisors into a treaty-backed body with a permanent secretariat. Member states routinely work through their NSAs, making the office central to day-to-day engagement.
The Wickremesinghe-era draft law envisaged a standing National Security Advisor with a statutory mandate to coordinate defence, intelligence and foreign-policy inputs. It has not been moved forward under the current administration.
