An article published on the front page of Dinamina newspaper carrying a statement made by national committee member of NPP Sunil Handunnetti caught the attention of FactSeeker on July 20.

The quoted article continued to page six stating that there are only three solutions to the economic crisis. Sell government business institutions due to be sold accordingly, print money or withdraw the money of depositors in banks in order to be spent by the government.

Upon reading the article, FactsSeeker intervened to fact-check the statement alleged to be made by the Minister.

The newspaper had cited the following link as the source for the article, which was broadcasted on national television on June 18:

When FactSeeker inquired on the accuracy of the statement from NPP’s media division, a representative stated that the video clip cited in the newspaper was distorted.

The media division further revealed that the distorted video clip was an extract of an interview broadcasted on Neth FM.
Furthermore, the Minister had issued a statement on his Facebook profile warning the public that the said video clip was misleading. The Minister’s post is as followed:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/kvcKCL2eL9Ccwb2R/

FactSeeker located the video concerned which was extracted from the political debate ‘Neth FM unlimited’ published on the Neth FM YouTube channel on December 21, 2023. The link to the debate is as follows:

The debate took place in the wake of the government’s decision to increase the Value Added Tax (VAT). Accordingly, the host questions the Minister whether there are alternative decisions for the government to take instead of increasing the VAT, to which the Minister proposes that the government manages expenditure.

He further responds along the lines of “When the country’s income is 4164 billion rupees, the expenditure is 11000 billion rupees. By next year (2024), the World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank will all have to pay 1.5 billion dollars in debt. If we are unable to pay these, what will inevitably happen to us is that the existing government business institutions will sell those that have been put up for sale as if they had been auctioned. That’s one answer. Otherwise money has to be molded. That is another answer. The money of the depositors in the banks has to be taken and spent by the government. Those three answers are what I learned.”

Accordingly, FactSeeker verifies that the article published on the Dinamina newspaper is based on a video clip extracted from a political debate which took place in 2023, and is misleading.