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Further blows to Tourist Board chief
Valiant attempts to send a committee reviewing the new tourism development laws on a foreign trip ostensibly to study the industry there were shot down for the second time by the government, official sources said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had earlier refused to sanction a foreign trip for the H.M.S Samaranayake-led committee but a second attempt was made on Thursday when board of directors of the Tourist Board met under its chairman Udaya Nanayakkara.

However, when the proposal seeking approval of the board came up board officials present objected saying it wasn’t right to permit the trip when it had already been rejected by President Rajapaksa, the sources said adding that no decision was taken on the matter.

One of the directors, the sources said, had queried as to why representatives of the committee should be studying systems in other countries when they themselves were experts. The committee appointed by Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike to ascertain whether the new Act is in line with the Mahinda Chintana strategy is due to submit its report later this month.

This rejection of the foreign trip was the second blow to Mr. Nanayakkara, for at the same meeting, the directors also refused to award a contract to his Ceylon Carriers Group for an internal job after one of the directors Bennet Cooray, who was not present, sent a letter objecting to the tender being awarded to this company. When the issue was being discussed at length, the Tourist Board chief walked out of the room.

It was a day of drama for the Tourist Board and its controversial chairman. On the same morning anti-bribery officials walked into the board offices and took away files and documents pertaining to construction-related issues. Mr. Nanayakkara has been pursuing a costly Rs 40-million refurbishing plan at the office which has been criticised by sections of the Tourism Ministry and the Treasury.

The Director Investigations of the Bribery Commission said they had removed files and documents from the Tourist Board for an investigation, but said they were yet to go into the documents and files taken away. “The investigations are related to matters concerning construction,” he said without elaborating.
Mr Nanayakkara, who has refused to quit despite requests from sections of the government and the tourism industry, came under further pressure on Thursday when the Treasury pulled the plug on his access to unlimited funds from the Tourism Development Cess Fund, and his board rejected a proposal to award a contract to his company for internal work.

Industry sources said that even before Mr. Nanayakkara was stalled in a bid to win a contract for his company, some of the earlier refurbishing work at the board office was given to a subsidiary of his own Ceylon Carrier’s Group, triggering major conflict of interest issues.

Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera on Thursday issued a circular bringing the tourism cess fund under the control of the Treasury from the Tourist Board, and to be managed by a committee comprising him, the Tourism Secretary and the board chairman.

All monies henceforth for tourism development work would be channeled through this committee on a month-by-month basis. The circular said that the tourism fund was the only cess fund that operated outside Treasury control unlike tea, rubber and coconut.

“It has been observed that certain cess and development levies are already collected by the Treasury and channelled to the respective agencies while certain cess and development levies are channelled directly to the institutions and managed in an ad-hoc manner leading to several deficiencies including violation of accounting and auditing requirements,” the Treasury chief has stated, without implying however that the Tourism Board was responsible.
He said it was also discovered that some spending made out of these funds was not related to specific development activity.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike left last night for the United States for yet another tourism conference. He is attending the annual meeting of the World Tourism and Travel Conference (WTTC) which is similar to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO). Sri Lanka is a member of the WTO but not the WTTC.

The industry which has a love-hate relationship with Mr. Bandaranaike and Mr. Nanayakkara has complained over delays in implementing the new Act which should have been operative last January. In the New Year, the Tourism Minister appointed the review committee which industry players see as a delaying tactic in support of Mr. Nanayakkara. The Tourist Board chairman though earlier supportive of the new legislation is now opposed to it because it considerably limits his powers.

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