$2.5 million Treasury fraud: Sri Lankan taxpayers forced to absorb loss, says Harsha

Sri Lankan taxpayers will be forced to absorb a USD 2.5 million loss resulting from a fraudulent overseas Treasury transfer, following failure by authorities to trace or recover the stolen public funds.

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Chairman of the Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) Dr. Harsha de Silva said that the public would bear the ultimate financial burden of the cyber theft alongside their existing tax obligations, after millions were diverted from the Finance Ministry to foreign accounts.

The fraud occurred between December 2025 and January 2026, when cyber criminals compromised payment instructions using a lookalike email domain to intercept funds intended for Export Finance Australia.

Following the exposure of the theft, Assistant Director Ranga Nishantha Rajapaksha of the External Resources Department was interdicted and subsequently found dead at his home in Kuliyapitiya on April 30, 2026, with a four-member Judicial Medical Officer panel ruling the death a suicide.

Although the parliamentary finance committee published its final investigation report in July 2026, Dr de Silva noted that law enforcement agencies and state officials had failed to deliver any progress or submit formal updates to Parliament regarding recovery efforts.

The Treasury is expected to re-issue the full 2.5 million dollars to the legitimate foreign creditor using existing exchange-rate contingency buffers already allocated within last year's national budget, thereby avoiding the immediate need for new parliamentary funding allocations.

The committee chairman also expressed sharp disappointment with Speaker Dr Jagath Wickremaratne for declining a legislative recommendation to order a forensic audit through the Auditor General, opting instead to direct the findings back to the Finance Ministry where no visible action has since been taken.

The unresolved financial breach highlights severe ongoing vulnerabilities within Sri Lanka's central fiscal management systems and raises serious questions regarding executive accountability for public debt repayments.