Development Lotteries chairman removed through gazette
View(s):Romesh Jayawardena, chairman of the Development Lotteries Board, has been removed by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera through a gazette notification issued on Monday, September 4.
The decision dated August 31 was made by the minister under section 5 of the Development Lotteries Board Act, No. 20 of 1997. The lotteries segment in the Government has gone through a merry-go-round type of administration in recent times after Ravi Karunanayake assumed office as Finance Minister in 2015. While lotteries in practice came under the Finance Ministry, it was removed and assigned to the Foreign Ministry at Mr. Karunanayake’s request (some officials term this as ‘demands’) and when he took over that ministry since many of his nominees were running these organisations. When Mr. Karunanayake resigned as Foreign Minister under pressure over disclosures that his family had moved into a penthouse for which the lease rent was paid by Arjun Aloysius, whose company Perpetual Treasuries Ltd has been implicated in tainted Treasury bond issues in 2015 and 2016, lotteries reverted back to the Finance Ministry.