Update, Monday September 28: The Mahapola Trust Fund has confirmed in its own notice that the ceremony was scheduled for today and has been postponed. See the Trust Fund’s account below.

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said on Sunday that there is no need to stage ceremonies to hand out subsidies and welfare benefits that are paid for with taxpayers’ money, Hiru News reported.

He was addressing a public gathering organised by the Samagi Vanitha Balawegaya in the Galigamuwa constituency in Kegalle.

The Trust Fund confirms the ceremony — and postpones it

The Lalith Athulathmudali Mahapola Higher Education Scholarship Trust Fund has confirmed that a certificate awarding ceremony for the 2024/2025 academic year was scheduled for 28 September 2026 and has been postponed, in a notice published on its own website. The ceremony had been due to take place on Monday under the patronage of the Prime Minister, Hiru News reported the same morning, adding that the Trust Fund will announce a new date in future.

The notice is the first account of this event from the body actually running it, and it settles the point LankaNewz could not confirm on Sunday: a ceremony was scheduled, and it is not going ahead.

It gives a reason only in the most general terms — the postponement is “due to circumstances beyond the control of the Trust Fund” — and adds detail no other account carried. About 600 students had been selected for certificates, under both Merit and Non-Merit categories. The Trust Fund says the ceremony was planned to recognise their achievements and, secondarily, to raise public awareness of the Mahapola mission and attract new donors and sponsors. It apologises for the “inconvenience, disappointment and difficulties” caused to students, parents, universities, suppliers and staff who had made arrangements in anticipation — the reference to suppliers indicating an event some way into preparation.

It also states that the postponement “does not diminish the achievements of any student or affect the value of the Mahapola Scholarship”, and that a new date will be announced through official channels.

An unattributed rebuke

The notice does not name Premadasa, or anyone else. It does, however, push back:

The Trust Fund regrets that various information and views have been circulated through social media by parties who may not have had a complete understanding of the objectives, background and arrangements of the programme, resulting in unnecessary uncertainty regarding the event.

It goes on to say that all Trust Fund activities are carried out “with transparency and accountability”, that anyone with concerns is welcome to contact its officials, and that students and stakeholders should rely on official announcements “rather than unverified information circulated through social media”.

Who that is aimed at is not stated. Premadasa made his remarks at a public meeting rather than on social media, and no outlet reports a government or Trust Fund response naming him.

What it does not say

The notice is narrower than it may look. It does not mention Temple Trees or any venue, does not name the Prime Minister, and — most importantly — says nothing about the attendance condition that is the substance of Premadasa’s allegation. His claim was not that a ceremony was being held, but that students were told their certificates, and through them their scholarship money, depended on turning up and registering. The Trust Fund neither confirms nor denies that, and its reference to “objectives, background and arrangements” being misunderstood does not engage with it.

There is also a difference in terms. Premadasa described the event as cancelled after the matter came to light; the Trust Fund describes it as postponed, with a new date to follow, and attributes it to circumstances outside its control rather than to any controversy. Both can be true of the same decision, but they are not the same statement, and neither side addresses the other’s version.

Hiru’s Monday report places the two side by side without reconciling them, noting Premadasa’s separate allegation — made at Galigamuwa on Sunday — that the government planned to withhold scholarships from students who did not attend.

The Mahapola claim

Premadasa said arrangements had initially been made to hold the presentation ceremony for the 2024/2025 Mahapola higher education scholarship certificates at Temple Trees, the Prime Minister’s official residence.

University students, he said, were notified that they would receive their Mahapola certificates only if they travelled to Temple Trees and registered there — and that the scholarship allowance itself would be released only on production of that certificate.

The scheduled event was cancelled after the matter came to light, he said. Premadasa argued that an administration that came to power criticising exactly this kind of practice was now using the same methods, at significant inconvenience to students.

On the cost of living

Citing figures from the Department of Census and Statistics, Premadasa said the data underlying a finding that Rs. 589 a day is enough for one person to live on is unrealistic. He said the public continues to struggle with a high cost of living while the Government misleads people with false statements and promises it cannot keep.

What is now settled, and what is not

Sunday’s report rested on a single verified newsroom, and we noted then that we had not independently confirmed a ceremony was scheduled or called off. The Trust Fund’s own notice has since confirmed that much, and supplies the date, the scale and the fact of the postponement.

What remains unverified is the part that made the remarks newsworthy. No source we can reach — the Trust Fund notice included — confirms or denies that students were told their certificates and scholarship payments depended on attending. The venue is unconfirmed: only Premadasa says Temple Trees, and only Hiru says the event was under the Prime Minister’s patronage. The two are consistent, Temple Trees being the Prime Minister’s official residence, but no account states both.

Still absent: any statement from the Prime Minister’s Office or the Ministry of Education, and any explanation of what the “circumstances beyond the control of the Trust Fund” were. Among verified newsrooms the story is still carried only by Hiru; Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, EconomyNext, Daily FT, The Island, Daily News, Colombo Gazette, The Morning and Newswire have not covered the ceremony or its postponement. Searches continue to return an older body of Inter University Students’ Federation protest coverage on Mahapola arrears and payment amounts, which is a separate and much longer-running dispute.

On dating: the Trust Fund notice carries no publication date. We have dated it to 28 September because it was retrieved that day and announces the postponement of an event it states was scheduled for 28 September 2026.

A note on wording: Hiru’s English rendering of the remark refers to holding “spectacles”. In context — a criticism of staging an event to distribute an entitlement — this reads as ceremonies or staged shows, and we have described it that way.

Sources