Partly True

“Currently, there are 26 million software engineers in the world, but there are only 85,000 in Sri Lanka.”

Our president [Ranil Wickremesinghe] […] increased the price of gas by fourfold, increased the price of [crude] oil by fourfold, increased the price of petrol […] After that, he said, “Look, there are no queues after I came [to power]”... The gas consumption in the country [has reduced] by 40%.

In 1991, Bangladesh only exported goods worth roughly USD 2.2 Bn. Vietnam exported goods worth around USD 3 Bn. Sri Lanka exported goods worth around USD 2.8 Bn. Today, by 2024, Bangladesh’s exports have reached USD 87 Bn, Vietnam is exporting worth USD 464 billion, having built a large economy. In Sri Lanka, our exports are still worth [only] USD 16 Bn.

Our country’s total foreign debt is USD 37 billion. However, this person [the one who posted on social media] is citing a false figure... [He] claims that we obtained loans of up to [USD] 100 billion [from USD 71 billion] over the past two years. However, everyone knows that no country gave us loans after we declared our inability to repay our debt. No country has the legal right to provide loans to us... How can we obtain loans if no country is providing loans to us? Should I go and rob the Bank of England?

The foreign loans obtained to construct the expressways and have not been repaid yet amount to Rs. 800 billion. The annual profit [from expressways] is Rs. 5 billion. Even if we continue to earn a profit of Rs. 5 billion in this way, it will take us 160 years to repay this debt.

Our management of the economy resulted in an unbroken nine-year economic boom. We had no difficulty in paying off our debts […]

If [the president] has a dream, there should be a systematic plan to turn that dream into reality. He presented a budget in 2023 to this country’s parliament. It turned into a false statement where 94% of that budget could not be fulfilled.

237,143 small and medium enterprises have been closed down within these three years alone [2020-22] due to the economic crisis.

The country's unemployment rate rose to 5.5% in 2020. It was the highest unemployment rate experienced by Sri Lanka since 2009. The government was able to bring that figure down to 4.7% by 2023.

Despite this economic crisis and…the fact that the government reiterated that it would slash expenses, the president’s expenditure head has been… [increased to] LKR 3,779 million…If we consider the amount that this president spends on the cabinet and others…The president has seven ministries under him and of the total expenditure of Rs. 7,826.84 billion, Rs. 5,227.77 billion has been allocated for himself…that is, 66.7% of the total expenditure in the budget has been allocated for the president.

In 2022, when we were going through the gravest foreign exchange crisis this country has ever faced, one of the main factors for it was remittances from foreign workers. After that the income from tourism.

500 individuals from our country go abroad on a daily basis. In the recent past, between 180,000 and 200,000 individuals per month have gone abroad. The reason why they go abroad is because it’s difficult to live in this country.

The wealthiest 1% in Sri Lanka enjoy 31% of the national income. Similarly, the 10% at the highest stratum of society, inclusive of that 1%, enjoy 64% of the national income […]. After that, the 50% at the bottom enjoy 4% of the national income.

[…] We've been able to build up reserves to 4.4 billion by the end of last year.

[The] Sri Lankan passport [is] …97th among global passports…What does it mean? It means that…you have access to 40 countries without a visa. Sri Lanka has very little access to other countries to get a visa on arrival. Among those countries are Pakistan, Singapore, and Dominica…

My government reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio from 90% at the end of 2005 to 69% at the end of 2014.

In 2019, the expenditure on the food of an individual living in Colombo or elsewhere in Sri Lanka was between Rs. 6,000 and Rs. 6,500. By 2023, this has increased to between Rs.16,000 to Rs.17,000. That is, the expenditure has tripled.

The government, despite taking the path of revenue-based stabilisation, has fallen significantly short of its targets. For instance, excise revenues have fallen short by approximately 43%, with collection at Rs.125 billion as of September [2023], compared to the required Rs. 214 billion.

The World Bank states that the poverty level which was at 13% in 2019 has by today, increased to at least 25%. The multidimensional Poverty Vulnerability of Oxford University and UNDP (sic) states that when considering education, health, and the economy altogether, 12.5 million out of the 21 million in our country, [that is] more than 56%, can be categorised as poor.

…the exports have decreased by 19.5 %. […] in the first quarter of 2023, the industrial sector has collapsed by 23.4%.

If we look at remittances, the highest amount of remittances have been received in 2016, 2017, 2018. Thereafter, some arrived in 2020 and after that, it has declined steadily. Remittances peaked at around USD 7.2 billion […] Today, those remittances have dropped to USD 3.7 billion.

[…] Effective April 1, 2023, we hope to impose a fee of USD 50 on every Sri Lankan who enters such a place of business of gaming. This law was in place since 2015. From 2015, the stated law was to charge USD 100 from a person, but not a cent has been charged yet over these eight years. We only commenced charging this amount this year. […] By starting with an entrance fee of USD 50 and increasing it to USD 200, we hope that… the participation of Sri Lankans will be greatly reduced.

Even in the midst of all the shortcomings, it’s Sri Lanka that has the best health service in South Asia

Come September, we will be the first Asian country to be subjected to IMF review of governance diagnostic. [...] In the meantime, even in the Geneva Resolution against Sri Lanka, they spoke about the need to address the economic crimes. For the first time in the history of Human Right Council in Geneva, a government was accused of economic crimes and that again become Sri Lanka. So therefore, we have this dubious” record [...]

If each Chinese tourist spent $5,000 that could raise a figure comparable to the recent International Monetary Fund bailout…If you really look at it, tourism can get Sri Lanka out of this mess.

Inflation, which had skyrocketed to 70 percent, has now decreased to 25.2 percent, lightening the burden of daily life for all of us.

From the very short period between last year's August and this year's March…the [electricity] bill increase [was]…1,138% for the poor man [a consumer who uses 30 units] and 160% for the rich man [a person using 180 units] …higher prices have been charged from the poor, and with the money obtained from the poor, the bills of the rich have been subsidised.

…we are coming step by step towards fiscal stability. Even the IMF calculated that for this first quarter, our primary account balance will be negative by Rs. 56 billion. But we have brought this quarter…to a positive Rs. 48 billion.

Fuel Cost Breakdown - Data for the formula from actual cost incurred during the immediate past 28 days period from 28th February - 28th March 2023….Price difference (between the formula base price per litre and current retail price per litre) Petrol-92 Rs.1.63…Lanka Auto Diesel Rs.0.04….

Today, 36% of our country’s national wealth is generated from the Western Province. The North Central Province’s contribution to our country’s national wealth is 5%. The contribution of the North Western Province is 9%. The benefits of the economy flow to the people to the extent that they participate in the economy… The rural poor have not got a chance to join the economy.

…the current normalcy in the country is at a low-level equilibrium. This is an uneasy equilibrium.... Our normal [monthly] fuel bill stood at US $ 550 million. It has now been cut down to US $ 200 million…

If we are in a situation where there is no rainfall, provided that we are able to obtain all the coal we need by April, we would be able to provide electricity all 24 hours of the day, without interruptions…That means, as a whole, our generation cost is Rs. 889 billion. From that, we receive only something like Rs. 400 billion.

We set a target to collect Rs. 915 billion in tax incomes through IRD in 2022. I’m delighted to say that we have been able to achieve 68.4% of this annual target at the end of September, which is in spite of the projected 8.2% contraction of GDP this year.

…if you take Sri Lanka as a whole, the prevalence of low birthweight is 12.2% but if you take the Nuwara Eliya hill country community, it is 20%. Generally, in Sri Lanka, 7.4% of children below the age of 5 years suffer from wasting but among the hill country communities, it is 8.2%. Generally, at a national level, the prevalence of stunting is 8.2%; among the hill country communities, it is 17.4%...

Malnutrition, which stood at 27.4 percent in 2009, has dropped to 12.2 percent by 2021. This reflects a very clear development in our health sector.

There are around 430 SOEs. Of these…218 are companies....52 of these are considered to be strategically important SOEs. The loss of strategically important SOEs in 2021 has been LKR 286 billion. By Q2 of 2022…their losses were LKR 966 billion.

In the year 2021, there are five hundred and seven thousand income files. Of this, 292,000 are individuals and 68,000 are companies

The total tax revenue collected by the government last year [2021] was LKR 1,298 billion. Of that, LKR 1,115 billion alone had to be used to pay the salaries and pensions of state sector employees. Therefore, only LKR 153 billion remained to be used for anything else.

Food inflation rose to 57 % from 46.6 % from last month to this month. Within one month, inflation – food inflation – has increased by more than 10%. Our inflation figures have not usually increased by 10% even over a year but today it has increased by that number within a month.

It [tax revenue as a percentage of GDP] decreased over time, under all these governments [every government since 1981] and today it has collapsed to a value of 8.7%.

Every month we have to repay the loans that previous governments had obtained for various reasons. On ISBs, by 2015, we had only taken out USD 5 billion worth of them. During the time of the previous government, USD 15 billion worth of ISBs were taken out.

In 2014… we did so much work and reduced the electricity bill by 25 per cent.  

Sri Lanka increased exports by 23% amidst challenging environment faced both locally and globally. Total exports are USD 12.3 billion in 2020 and USD15.12 billion in 2021.

It is said that 10 patients are dying every hour. The rate at which patients are dying is 1.5%. Sri Lanka has become the country that reports the highest death rate in Asia due to COVID-19.

When compared with the countries in the South Asian region, the fuel price of our country is still lower than that of the other countries in the region. Among the countries in this region, only Pakistan provides diesel at a price lower than Sri Lanka. It is only in Sri Lanka that petrol and...

The tax revenue in 2014 at the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government was Rs. 1,050 billion. Thereafter, its successor the Good Governance Government imposed tax rates to collect more than Rs. 1,700 billion a year, which was an excessive burden.The people were not taxed in this manner even...

From the day this government came into power to March this year, LKR 831 billion has been printed.

Not even 2 million of the Sri Lankan population has been vaccinated as of now. We have vaccinated the least number of people in the region.

The largest foreign exchange earners contributing USD 7 billion to the economy of this country are the women of our country who perform drudgery in the Middle East. Number two is the apparel industry. USD 5.6 billion. In whose hands is it? In our sisters' hands. Number three, the tea economy...

[Sathosa] was an institution that did not incur losses before 2015. Sathosa has lost 20 billion rupees during the last five years (2015 – 2019).

As of now (February 2021), the total ISBs outstanding is USD 14 billion, which is only 16.7 percent of Sri Lanka’s total debt. None of the other creditors who hold 83.3 percent of Sri Lanka’s debt seem to show any sign of concern or stress about its repayment ability. We have to repay only around US

The amount allocated for the Health Ministry while this crisis is ongoing is Rs. 158 billion for 2021, that’s down Rs. 20 billion from 2019… You can see where the government’s priorities are.

Also, for the first time in Sri Lanka’s history, when Sri Lanka, as a sovereign state, asked the international community for a loan, they asked for collateral. This is because the international community has identified that if Sri Lanka continues with its current economic policies…

We provided electricity to 99.9% of the country.

Prior to 2015, the economic growth rate was between 7% and 8%, but by 2019, it fell below 2%.

We know that our country has received a large amount of money from abroad to control [the COVID-19 pandemic] ...

[The number in Sri Lanka considered to have contracted Covid-19] is determined only by the number of people that have been tested for the virus.

A litre of diesel is sold at Rs. 104 and this can be reduced to Rs. 61. A litre of 92 octane petrol is Rs. 137; it can be priced at Rs. 80.

When the Yahapalana government came into power, state revenue was LKR 1.05 trillion. Our government doubled this income to LKR 2.1 trillion within 5 years.

“Sri Lanka also made significant progress in the resettlement of over 440,000 IDPs … presently it has risen to 93.76%.”

The allegation is that the UNP caused a loss of LKR 10 billion through bonds. The country has not experienced a loss because the CBSL froze/impounded LKR 12 billion from Perpetual Treasuries.

Only 52% of our country uses public transport... 48% of the people use private transport.

During the last four years, the rates of all forms of crime […] declined drastically […] under this government compared to the previous Rajapaksa regime.

In the ten years of the Rajapaksa administration, this country’s exports fell from 30% to 18%.

Total borrowings by the Government have been completely used to repay debt.

Today, most people in prisons are those imprisoned for being unable to pay fines...

…macroeconomic indicators showed positive trends with the country’s $7.6 billion foreign reserves,

Of the 71,172.56 acres of state-owned land occupied by the security forces, 63,257.48 acres were released

There are close to 22,000 inmates in prisons.

The absolute poverty ratio of the country has been reported as 6.7%...

When a mobile phone user in our country pays Rs. 5,000 [as the mobile phone bill], Rs. 1,600 of it goes towards paying taxes.

If I remember correctly, [in the past 20 years] 14 Tamil journalists have been murdered.

74% of the population of Sri Lanka lives a rural lifestyle/in a rural setting.

The number of murders in Sri Lanka in 2008 was 1,378. In 2010, the number was 741; in 2013, it was 586; in 2014, it was 548; and in 2015 it was 476.

A recent survey on independence of the judiciary shows that Sri Lanka is ranked amongst the highest among Asian countries.