• Speaker, Dy Speaker among officials granted unlimited fuel
• Speaker draws 6,122 litres a month in 2024
• Rs 8.55 m extra fuel for Deputy Speaker’s private vehicle
• SG’s salary rises 800% without parliamentary approval
• Rs 335 m spent on staff transport since 2016
• Rs 209 m spent on MPs’ foreign travel

 A damning special audit report by the Auditor General’s Department has exposed a system of unchecked financial privileges at Parliament, with the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and other senior officials enjoying unlimited fuel and vehicle entitlements, while the Secretary General’s salary has increased by around 800 per cent without being re-sanctioned by Parliament for more than two decades.

The report, tabled in Parliament on 21 August, has laid bare years of weak financial controls and questionable expenditure at the country’s supreme legislative institution, including Rs 26.05 million spent on fuel for the Speaker’s post in 2024 alone, Rs 8.55 million in fuel drawn for a private vehicle used by the Deputy Speaker over two years, and Rs 335.66 million spent since 2016 on an employee bus service operating without a written agreement.

The special audit, the tenth report issued by the Auditor General under Article 154(6) of the Constitution, examined Parliament’s financial management during the Eighth and Ninth Parliaments from September 2015 to November 2024.

It found that unlimited fuel had been provided to the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Deputy Chairperson of Committees and Secretary General, despite officials of comparable rank elsewhere in the public service being subject to prescribed limits.

The Speaker of the Ninth Parliament had used an average of 3,994 litres of fuel a month in 2023, increasing to 6,122 litres a month in 2024. The resulting expenditure was Rs 19.37 million in 2023 and Rs 26.05 million in 2024.

The Deputy Speaker had also been allowed fuel outside established limits. The audit found that 21,299 litres of fuel worth Rs 8.55 million had been drawn for a private vehicle during 2023 and 2024, in addition to fuel used by three official vehicles assigned to the post.

Those three official vehicles had themselves exceeded their fuel allocations by 6,980 litres in 2023 and 1,515 litres in 2024.

The audit further found that the Chairman of Committees had been provided with three official vehicles and unlimited fuel, although no formal decision had been made determining the entitlement.

The report has also raised a serious constitutional issue over the remuneration of Parliament’s Secretary General.

Under Article 65(2) of the Constitution, the Secretary General’s salary is required to be fixed by Parliament. The salary was set at Rs 274,920 with effect from January 2004 and recorded in Hansard in November that year.

However, the audit found that no fresh approval had been sought from Parliament since then, despite the basic salary having increased by around 800 per cent over the intervening period.

The Auditor General noted that this situation had resulted in a significant charge on the Consolidated Fund without the constitutional approval required by law.

The Secretary General’s office was also found to have operated two official vehicles, KY 5555 and CAN 8753, simultaneously during 2022 and 2023.

The two vehicles consumed 15,063 litres of fuel between 2022 and 2024 at a cost of Rs 6.07 million, which the audit calculated to be around 2,300 litres a year more than the entitlement of a Ministry Secretary, the highest-fuelled comparable category in the public service.

The Deputy Secretary General, Assistant Secretary General and other heads of department had also been granted unlimited fuel for official duties and private travel allowances of up to 1,200 kilometres a month, compared with 960 kilometres for comparable officials elsewhere in the public service.

No formal review had been carried out to bring these privileges into line with those applicable to other public officials.

The audit found that senior officials who exceeded their private mileage allowances had been charged only Rs 8 per kilometre until June 2022, resulting in an estimated Rs 2.71 million loss to the State between September 2015 and June 2022.

The rate was subsequently revised in July 2022 to reflect market fuel prices, after which excess use declined sharply.

The report also exposed a long-running transport arrangement involving Parliament employees that had operated without a written contract.

Nine buses have transported around 1,500 non-staff grade employees along nine routes under an arrangement with the Sri Lanka Transport Board dating back to 1984.

Although Rs 335.66 million had been spent on the service since 2016, no written agreement had been entered into. A further Rs 5.89 million had been spent on drivers and conductors since mid-2021.

The average cost per travel pass had meanwhile increased from around Rs 27,662 in 2016 to more than Rs 95,000 in 2023.

Parliament also spent Rs 208.9 million between 2016 and 2024 to send 451 MPs overseas through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Inter-Parliamentary Union and SAARC Parliamentary Association.

A further Rs 56.9 million was spent on 115 staff members for 83 foreign trips.

The audit found that there was no formal requirement for MPs or staff returning from these trips to submit reports on what they had learned or gained from them.

The audit also identified several other administrative irregularities, including a discrepancy between the 25,103 books recorded in Parliament’s library register and the 34,000 books claimed on its website, concessionary vehicle import permits worth Rs 10.8 million granted to three employees before completion of the required six years of service, and 159 approved posts remaining vacant as of December 2025 without a formal review of whether they were still required.

The Auditor General has attributed many of these problems to Parliament continuing to operate under the Parliamentary Staff Act of 1953, last amended in 1959, without bringing it into line with the Public Financial Management Act No. 44 of 2024.

The report has recommended that the outdated legislation be reviewed and either amended or repealed, while calling for tighter controls on fuel and vehicle privileges and formal parliamentary approval of the Secretary General’s salary.

With the Treasury allocating nearly Rs 3.5 billion annually to run Parliament, the audit has raised serious questions over the financial controls governing an institution responsible for holding the rest of the public sector to account.