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Treasury rejects proposal to pay Rajapaksa era bills
The Treasury has rejected the proposal to meet the staggering bill of Rs 4.4 billion spent by the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa regime and declared it could not be met from state funds.
The Finance Ministry has informed the Cabinet of Ministers that such authorised payments would be from 2015, in accordance with prevailing Financial Regulations, leaving out a larger sum unpaid.
As exclusively revealed in the Sunday Times last week, President Maithripala Sirisena forwarded a Cabinet Memorandum seeking approval for Rs 4.4 billion in unpaid bills of the Rajapaksa regime. The ministers decided that the matter should be referred to the Finance Ministry.
Consequently, the ministers have now decided that the Finance Ministry observations should be sent to the Presidential Secretary for appropriate action.
The matter came up for discussion at a conference of officials of the Finance Ministry. It transpired that some of the payments for which claims have been made were as old as 2006. Other payments have been incurred due to not following tender procedures whilst yet others do not carry any explanation.
It transpired at the conference that the payment that could be made for 2016 would amount to a billion rupees and the balances could not be paid.
Among the unpaid bills due to private companies are Rs.112 million due to World Air (Pvt) Ltd., Rs. 71.9 million to Woodstock (Pvt) Ltd., Rs.70 million to Maga Engineering (Pvt) Ltd., Rs. 24.7 million to Abans (Pvt) Ltd., Rs.24.4 million to Sri Lanka Granite (Pvt) Ltd., Rs.12.9 million to ETA Melco Engineering (Pvt) Ltd., Rs.12.2 million to B. Somasiri and Rs.10.3 million to Premasiri Stores.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Customs is owed Rs. 2 billion.