Old video of Sri Lankan government minister swearing falsely linked to 2025 budget session

Published on February 27, 2025 at 09:21
3 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka

After Sri Lanka's leftist government unveiled plans to revive the country's economy during its maiden budget in parliament on February 17, 2025, an old video resurfaced in posts viewed hundreds of thousands of times that falsely claimed it showed a current "state minister" swearing during the session. The clip was in fact filmed in December 2022, and shows a member of a previous administration.

The video, showing a lawmaker swearing after being interrupted in parliament, was shared on Facebook on February 18, 2025.

"PhD holders using swear words in parliament," read its Sinhala-language caption, with "PhD holders" referring to members of leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's government.

His National People's Power (NPP) coalition had pledged to replace underqualified politicians with highly educated candidates (archived link).

Superimposed text on the video, which was viewed at least 180,000 times, adds that the video shows a "state minister during the budget".

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on February 27, 2025

The video was also shared alongside similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here.

It circulated a day after Dissanayake's government unveiled its maiden budget to parliament on February 17, banking on vehicle import taxes to boost revenue and revive the island nation's battered economy (archived link).

The video, however, was filmed in December 2022.

Former state minister

Keyword searches on Facebook and Google led to the same footage posted on Facebook on December 4, 2022 (archived link).

The video was posted on the Facebook page "NewsCenter.lk".

Screenshot comparison of the footage in the false post (left) and as shared in December 2022 (right)

The footage was also shared by Sri Lanka's Mawrata News which identified the official as Thenuka Vidanagamage (archived here and here). A transcript of his speech in parliament on December 3, 2022 is included in the Hansard report from the day (archived link).

At the time, Vidanagamage was the state minister of Urban Development and Housing, a post to which he was appointed in September 2022 (archived link). Vidanagamage lost his seat in parliamentary elections in November 2024 (archived link).

The NPP coalition government no longer appoints state ministers, with the Dissanayake administration instead relying on cabinet minsters and deputy ministers (archived here, here and here).

AFP has previously debunked other false claims targeting President Dissanayake and his ruling NPP coalition.

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