{"id":153724,"date":"2025-12-18T15:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=153724"},"modified":"2025-12-18T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:34:19","slug":"did-the-government-overestimate-disaster-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/12\/18\/did-the-government-overestimate-disaster-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the government overestimate disaster\u00a0damage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Hiru News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.hirunews.lk\/Data\/News_Images\/202512\/1765958972_1096714_hirunews.jpg\" alt=\"Did+the+government+overestimate+disaster%C2%A0damage%3F\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ministry officials have submitted their estimates for the recent disaster&#8217;s infrastructure damage, immediately raising questions over the total national cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Road Development Authority informed the Parliamentary Oversight Committee that it incurred a Rs. 75 billion loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The damage includes 316 roads and 40 bridges, with approximately Rs. 190 billion required for complete restoration and repair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Separately, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board reported estimated losses of Rs. 5.6 billion, and the Ceylon Electricity Board incurred a loss of about Rs. 20 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These figures come to light amid great uncertainty regarding the total quantification of national damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While some financial experts estimate the total damage at just over $1 billion, the government\u2019s figure is seven times that amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First Capital Research, in their analysis of the situation, estimates the total damage incurred by the disaster to be no more than $1.1 billion, while prominent economist, Dr Kenneth de Zilwa\u2019s estimation is around Rs. 320 billion, which translates to little over $1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Hiru News Ministry officials have submitted their estimates for the recent disaster&#8217;s infrastructure damage, immediately raising questions over the total national cost. The Road Development Authority informed the Parliamentary Oversight Committee that it incurred a Rs. 75 billion loss. The damage includes 316 roads and 40 bridges, with approximately Rs. 190 billion required for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153725,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153724\/revisions\/153725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}