Salary Hike or Hoax? Untangling the Viral Claims About MPs’ Pay

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On 6 August 2026, MP Ramanathan Archchunan held up his salary slip in Parliament and said MPs’ monthly pay and allowances had risen by Rs. 60,000. In a country where public anger over politicians’ perks runs hot, the clip did exactly what you would expect: it lit up social media, and a string of false claims rode along with it. We investigated. Here is what we found.

Social Media Posts

Posts claim that MPs’ salaries have increased by Rs. 60,000 appear below.

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Fact Check

What MP Archchunan Actually Showed

The posts grew out of MP Archchunan’s own statement in Parliament that MPs’ monthly salary and allowances had risen by Rs. 60,000, to a total of Rs. 484,000.

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According to the June and July slips he made public, his gross monthly income was Rs. 415,169.93 and his net pay, after tax and deductions, was Rs. 395,861.22, made up of basic pay plus allowances such as a phone allowance (Rs. 50,000) and an office allowance (Rs. 100,000).

Basic Salaries Have Not Been Increased – Deputy Minister Nishantha Jayaweera

Deputy Minister of Economic Development Nishantha Jayaweera told Parliament that MPs’ basic salaries have not been increased in any way. The real reason the slip figures changed, he said, is the fuel allowance: the government revised fuel allowances for all eligible state officials in line with current market fuel prices.

Even Archchunan’s own slip shows his fuel allowance rising from Rs. 179,707.93 in June to Rs. 244,300.46 in July, under the fuel-pricing formula. This applies not just to MPs but to all senior state officials entitled to the allowance; it is not a special salary increase granted to MPs.

SJB MP Rohana Bandara Said the Same

Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP Rohana Bandara, answering a question on Hiru TV’s ‘Balaya’ programme on 6 June, said an MP’s basic salary is Rs. 54,000 and it has not increased. He explained that the fuel-litre allowance had been misread because Archchunan travels from Jaffna to Parliament, he is among the MPs with the highest fuel entitlement, and what he showed was simply the monetary value of his 500-litre allocation at current fuel prices.

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An MP’s Basic Salary Has Been Frozen Since 2006

An MP’s basic salary (allowance) was last fixed at Rs. 54,285.00 in 2006 and has not changed for nearly two decades.

The November 2006 Parliamentary Resolution

On 23 November 2006, Parliament unanimously passed a resolution pegging the basic salaries of MPs and Ministers to that of the highest-ranking judicial officer, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, setting it at Rs. 54,285. When Supreme Court judges’ salaries were revised in 2018, a proposal was submitted to then-Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to raise MPs’ basic salary by 215%, to Rs. 120,000, in line with the 2006 resolution. Intense public opposition and political instability forced the proposal to be shelved at the last-minute, and the basic salary stayed frozen at Rs. 54,285. Although public-sector pay has been revised several times since, no government has issued a new gazette or law to change MPs’ basic salary.

So, while the basic salary stays fixed, what actually drives up an MP’s gross income is not the basic salary but the phone, office, and market-linked fuel allowances. Official Sri Lanka Parliament data confirms the basic allowance (salary) stands at Rs. 54,285.00, as shown below.

How MPs’ Salaries Can Legally Be Increased

There are two main mechanisms. First, through a Parliamentary Act or resolution: MPs’ salaries and allowances are governed by the Members of Parliament (Emoluments) Act No. 4 of 1983, and any increase requires a resolution passed by a majority of MPs. Second, through alignment with public-sector salary circulars: because MPs’ pay is pegged to senior state officials such as Supreme Court judges, their basic allowance updates automatically whenever a general public-service pay revision occurs.

What Else Changes the Figure on the Slip

Although an MP’s basic salary is Rs. 54,285, their gross monthly income exceeds Rs. 400,000 because allowances update on price formulas. MPs do not get a fixed fuel allowance; they are allotted a set number of litres based on the distance from their district to Parliament (for example, 283.94 litres for Colombo and 355.58 litres for Gampaha), paid at the Lanka IOC diesel market price on the first of each month. When market prices move or the government revises litre limits, the amount deposited changes automatically, with no new gazette or salary law required. The recent Rs. 60,000 changes on Archchunan’s slip came from exactly this general fuel-allowance adjustment.

The False Nalinda Jayatissa “News 1st” Post

A separate post claimed that Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said: MPs’ salaries were raised due to rising inflation. Anyone who doesn’t want it can opt out.’Facebook  |  Archived Link

Our investigation confirmed that Nalinda Jayatissa, Cabinet Spokesperson and Minister of Health and Mass Media, made no such statement, in Parliament or anywhere else. Although the post posed as a News 1st bulletin, no such story appears on News 1st’s official Facebook page. When we contacted News 1st Digital’s manager, they confirmed that they had published no such story and that the post was a fabrication mimicking their official news format.

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Conclusion

Our fact-check confirms that MPs’ basic salaries have not been increased. The basic allowance has stood at Rs. 54,285 since 2006. The Rs. 60,000 changes seen on MP Archchunan’s slip stems from a market-linked fuel-allowance adjustment applied to all eligible senior state officials, not a salary increase for MPs.

Deputy Minister Nishantha Jayaweera and SJB MP Rohana Bandara both confirmed this, and the claim that Minister Nalinda Jayatissa announced a salary hike is a fabricated News 1st-style post.