A Statement from PM Harini on the Ministry of Education saving two-thirds from the 2024 budget? Find out the facts…

Subscribe to our WhatsApp Channel

 

A recent wave of viral Facebook posts claims that the Ministry of Education was able to save a significant portion of the funds allocated to the ministry. Shared as a statement attributed to PM Harini, these posts had raised many red flags. We decided to check the facts.

Social Media Posts :

A social media post in Sinhala claims that Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya stated, “We were able to save two-thirds of the Ministry of Education’s budget and send that money to the treasury because we do not steal or cheat.” (Translated to English)

Facebook | Archived Link

Here is how the post was widely shared.

Let’s look at the facts behind these viral claims.

Fact Check  :

We checked through the mainstream media whether Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya had any comments in line with the statement mentioned above. However, we did not see any such report. 

We inquired about this from the Ministry of Education, and they also confirmed that the PM has not made any such statement. 

Additionally, the Education Ministry clarified that the funds allocated for the Ministry and remained unutilized were mainly a result of the previous government, as the current regime came into effect only during the latter part of 2024.

Did the Ministry of Education Actually Save 2/3 from their Budget for 2024?

To verify the accuracy of this statement, we examined the Annual Performance Report – 2024 published in June 2025 by the Ministry of Education, Higher Education, and Vocational Education. 

In Chapter 03 of this report, the Ministry has detailed the allocations, expenditures and official data for the year 2024 under the overall financial performance for the year ended on December 31, 2024.

Accordingly, when examining those statistics, the data mentioned therein can be shown as follows.

Category	Provisions (Rs.)	Actual cost (Rs.)	Unspent (Rs.)	Percentage Unutilized
Recurring expenses	121,153,679,060	102,369,355,183	18,784,323,877	15.5%
Capital expenditure	50,758,131,000	34,371,228,655	16,386,902,345	32.29%
Total	175,065,810,000	139,650,412,019	35,415,397,981	20.23%

In other words, during the year 2024, the Ministry of Education was allocated Rs. 175.1 billion, of which Rs. 139.6 billion was spent. Accordingly, the unexpended balance is Rs. 35.4 billion, which is about 20% of the budget allocated for education.

The provisions and actual expenditures are further clearly shown in the Annual Performance Report as follows.

Therefore, if two-thirds of the Education budget had actually been left unexpended, as per the figures, the unutilized fund would have been close to Rs. 117 billion. 

However, expenditure shows that such would not be possible as a significant percentage is spent on salaries and wages themselves. 

According to the official Annual Performance Report – 2024, it is clear that only Rs. 35.4 billion of the allocated funds remained unspent. 

To explain further, the official budget reports confirm that in 2024, the Ministry of Education had spent about 4/5 of its allocations, and about 1/5 remained unused.

Therefore, even the point falsely attributed to PM Harini is baseless.

Also, it is important to note that when the Appropriation Bill for the financial year 2024 was presented in November 2023, the amount allocated for the Ministry of Education (Recurrent & Capital) was Rs. 239 billion. This is shown in budget estimates for 2024, including the budget proposals approved by the Ministry of Finance. In this budget, Rs. 239,840 million had been allocated for the Ministry of Education, with Rs. 181,800 million for recurrent expenditure, and Rs. 58,040 million for capital expenditure. 

However, according to the official Annual Performance Report – 2024 released in June 2025, the total expenditure allocated to education for 2024 was Rs. 175.1 billion, with Rs. 121,153 million for recurrent expenditure and Rs. 50,758 million for capital expenditure.

Join us to learn more about our investigative fact findings.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google News | TikTok | Youtube

Conclusion  :

Our investigation reveals that viral posts claiming Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya stated, “We were able to save two-thirds of the Ministry of Education’s expenditure and send that money to the treasury because we do not steal or cheat,” were fabricated. 

Not only is there no evidence of PM Harini making such a statement, but the official figures published from the Annual Report of 2024 for the Ministry of Education suggest that only 20% of the total allocated budget remained unutilized for the year 2024.