Opposition MP and President’s Counsel Faiszer Musthapha used his time in Parliament on Thursday to urge the Government to address widening system-wide governance and financial security failures, citing the USD 2.5 million Treasury cyber heist and the NDB banking fraud as evidence that investor confidence and economic stability are at risk.
Musthapha, speaking the day after the Treasury debate, said the recent cluster of institutional lapses pointed to weaknesses extending well beyond a single ministry or counterparty. He called for urgent measures to strengthen oversight across state financial institutions, framing the issue as one of system architecture rather than isolated incident.
The intervention adds a fourth opposition track on the Treasury heist after SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa’s call for a Parliamentary Select Committee, SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa’s “Government asleep” critique, and Sarvajana Balaya’s Dilith Jayaweera framing the loss as not attributable to hackers. Musthapha’s contribution is the second time he has used parliamentary procedure to escalate financial-accountability questions, after he first called for a Presidential Special Investigation Committee in late April.
The May 6 debate followed the Government’s first detailed payment-by-payment disclosure of the cyber heist, which Committee on Public Finance Chairman Harsha de Silva called “monumental confusion” inside the Finance Ministry. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala has since told Parliament that CID has recorded statements from 21 individuals in the probe.
Musthapha’s framing — that financial security failures are now systemic rather than incidental — joins a growing parliamentary chorus arguing the Government must move beyond case-by-case responses. UNP-aligned voices have separately raised eight questions on Public Debt Management Act compliance, and the House Committee on Finance has been probing the NDB fraud at the Central Bank in parallel.
Source: Daily FT.
