{"id":434471,"date":"2026-02-19T16:35:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434471\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T16:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:35:21","slug":"sri-lanka-ends-parliamentary-pensions-to-prune-perks-for-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434471\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka ends parliamentary pensions to prune perks for politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/sri-lanka?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sri Lanka<\/a>\u2019s parliament abolished pensions for all legislators and their widows on Tuesday, in line with a government pledge to prune the perks of politicians.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWhen people see the quality of debate and what members say in this House, they don\u2019t think MPs deserve a pension,\u201d Justice Minister Harsana Nanayakkara told parliament as it voted to stop pensions with immediate effect.<\/p>\n<p>The leftist government of President <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/anura-kumara-dissanayake?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anura Kumara Dissanayake<\/a> repealed the 49-year-old Parliamentary Pensions Act just months after withdrawing housing, vehicles and thousands of bodyguards from former presidents.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The 225-member legislature, where the ruling party has a two-thirds majority, voted 154 in favour, with just two against, to repeal the pensions law.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa objected, saying a pension was necessary to ensure legislators had social security after leaving office.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Otherwise, he argued, they could be tempted to amass wealth through corruption to secure their well-being in retirement.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Under the previous law, members of parliament were entitled to a pension after completing five years in office, while other state employees had to complete 10 years of service to qualify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s parliament abolished pensions for all legislators and their widows on Tuesday, in line with a government&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[157938,158633,84,4176,158637,158638,158639,158634,158635,158640,4174,4175,1786,158636,2459,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-434471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-anura-kumara-dissanayake","9":"tag-british-colonial-rule","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-gotabaya-rajapaksa","13":"tag-harsana-nanayakkara","14":"tag-justice-minister","15":"tag-mahinda-rajapaksa","16":"tag-opposition-leader","17":"tag-parliamentary-pensions-act","18":"tag-personal-finance","19":"tag-personalfinance","20":"tag-president","21":"tag-sajith-premadasa","22":"tag-sri-lanka","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}