The Government is planning a comprehensive audit of the country‘s public and privately-held land assets. The public sector property audit will be conducted under the first phase of this initiative. The Ministry of Lands and Land Development will present a paper indicating modalities of a full audit of state and private land covering a wide spectrum of issues including updating of land records; survey, demarcation and protection of lands; efficient use of land; encroachment of land, the extent and reasons thereof, effectiveness of encroachment and removal actions.

The 11-year jail sentence on Sri Lankan-origin, fund manager Raj Rajaratnam for insider trading by a US court brings to the fore Sri Lanka’s own ways of dealing with this menace. “It just shows that however cocky you are (like how Rajaratnam was), the law will (ultimately) catch up with you,” noted Aritha Wickramanayake, a well-known corporate lawyer and corporate governance specialist.