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Wattala-Mabole council’s shady land deals ignore dire local needs
The Wattala-Mabole Urban Council is facing severe criticism for continually leasing out or selling council land without due tender process while rate-payers lack basic facilities that could be provided with proper use of the land.
Lack of a main bus stand has led to buses stopping on both sides of the road creating a traffic gridlock. Pic by Indika Handuwala
The scandal has reached such proportions that earlier this month parliamentary watchdog, the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA), ordered that a committee headed by a retired judge be constituted to investigate the council’s land deals.
The directive was issued after a COPA inquiry found there were no records showing the leasing out of at least three out of nine acres of land.
Earlier, the council was ordered to repossess a 79-perch plot of land known as “Aswedduma” near Hendala junction that had been sold to a buyer without a tender process being followed.
A COPA inquiry revealed that although the council had originally claimed that the amount of land in dispute was only 79 perches, that was just one section of a nine-acre (1,440 perches) plot that had been broken up and leased to various individuals over the years, so the extent of council malpractice stood to be far greater than claimed.
The Sunday Times has repeatedly exposed the irregular manner in which this land had been sold in clear violation of tender guidelines. The scandal has already resulted in the former Secretary to the Wattala-Mabole Urban Council being interdicted while a chargesheet has also been issued against council Chairman Mark Gunasekera.
Sri Lanka Freedom Party council member Nimalsiri Koralage, who is leading the fight against the United National Party-controlled council’s attempt to sell the Aswedduma land, lamented that while the council was engaged in selling off public land without due process the people of the area struggled daily with a lack of basic facilities.
“We have no bus stand although this is one of the main towns along the Negombo Road. Buses stop on the road on both sides, creating a traffic gridlock. There are no public parking spaces and not a single public toilet,” he pointed out.
Mr. Koralage added that the Sunday market, which used to be held in the grounds of a nearby church, was now being held on the Old Negombo Road because the vendors had been evicted from the church grounds due to security concerns following the Easter Sunday attacks.
He said he had proposed that the 79 perches of land that the council had been ordered to repossess be used to house a bus stand, public toilets and provide a venue for the Sunday market.
Mr. Koralage said a Right To Information (RTI) request he filed uncovered the fact that seven other plots of land situated in various parts of the Wattala-Mabole area had been leased out by the council during the term of the current chairman, Mr. Gunasekera.
“I found details of seven different sites, most of which had been leased out for a nominal fee. Many were leased for a 30-year period,” he explained. An RTI request he filed asking for details of some other lands had been denied, he said.
“The tragedy is, these lands have been irregularly leased for a pittance over the past 20 years, mostly for a nominal fee of just Rs. 1,000 a year – this is despite the lack of even the most basic public facilities in the area.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Gunasekara claimed he had no knowledge of the nine acres mentioned by COPA. “The land had been surveyed from the air during the time of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. It has since been split apart due to the construction of the Negombo Road. We have records for all the lands we have. I’m not sure about the three acres they claim are missing,” he said.
Mr. Gunasekara acknowledged that there was a serious lack of public facilities in his area. “Yes, we have received a proposal to build a bus stand and a public toilet on the said land and to also allow the Sunday market to be held there. We are exploring our options at the moment,” he said.
COPA Chairman Lasantha Alagiyawanna told the Sunday Times he had called for a comprehensive report of all records of the nine acres of council land in question to be submitted to the committee before November 11.
“I expect the council has complied with that. We will carry forward our inquiry on this,” he added. COPA has also ordered the council to obtain an accurate survey of the land sites from the Surveyor-General’s Department by December 11.
Although the land is described as “marshland” COPA noted that it was not marshland and recommended that it be recategorised as “reclaimed land”, which will increase its value.
The committee gave express instructions to the council to utilise the land for any public needs and, if there was no such needs, to lease the land following due tender process.
COPA expressed its severe displeasure that massive losses had been caused to the State during the present and past tenures of the current council chairman through the practice of leasing out lands belonging to the council without following due tender process.
In addition to appointing a committee to probe fraudulent land deals by the Wattala-Mabole Council, COPA has also ordered that separate committees be appointed to look into possible fraud in the leasing and selling of land by local government authorities in the three districts of the Western Province.