System breach of Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry has triggered a political crisis

Hackers breached a government email system and tricked officials into diverting a debt repayment intended for Australia, igniting a political firestorm in Colombo.

Transparency advocates and opposition lawmakers are demanding an independent investigation after cybercriminals infiltrated Sri Lanka’s national treasury and diverted millions of dollars intended to repay a foreign debt.

The theft, which the local chapter of Transparency International condemned on Friday as “a serious lapse of financial oversight,” underscores severe digital vulnerabilities in the island nation’s government.

The Ministry of Finance confirmed earlier this week that hackers successfully breached the email system of the treasury’s Public Debt Management Office and tricked the government into wiring funds to their accounts. 

The scam was identified only after Australian export finance agencies notified Sri Lankan officials that the money, which was transmitted in five installments between Dec. 31, 2025, and March 20, 2026, had never arrived.

“Although the government followed the required procedures and completed the payment, the intended recipient did not receive the money,” Treasury Secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma told journalists. “Instead, the criminals who intervened in the email communications were able to divert nearly $2.5 million into other accounts.”

The revelation has ignited a political backlash, with opposition leaders accusing the government of concealing the breach from the legislature and evading accountability.

“In over 15 years in Parliament, I have never seen this level of contempt for parliamentary oversight,” Harsha de Silva, a member of the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya coalition and head of the parliamentary Committee on Public Finance, wrote on the social platform X. “Parliament is constitutionally responsible for public finance.”

Suriyapperuma defended the decision to withhold the information from lawmakers, arguing that premature public disclosure would have jeopardized an ongoing criminal probe.

While he declined to specify where the stolen funds were routed, the treasury secretary confirmed that several finance officials have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.