Anura slams Udaya over overspending

Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike this week fired an unusual broadside at his former brother-in-law and Tourist Board chairman – accusing the latter of overspending but choosing to keep silent on his own excess spending!

Tourism Board sources said that Bandaranaike, in a letter leaked to sections of the media, criticized Udaya Nanayakkara for spending Rs 5.3 million on a fashion show with international models without his permission.

At a meeting on Tuesday of the board of directors of the Tourist Board, Nanayakkara and the others had approved a budget of Rs 4.6 million for the fashion show and an optional cost of Rs 702,000 for internal air travel. Bandaranaike objected to this cost but said as it was too late to stop the show, he was only blocking the cost for internal air travel and not authorizing it.

However, the sources said, the minister chose to be silent on board approval given – on the same day – to a cost of Rs 314,080 incurred by Bandaranaike and his entourage for their trip to Thailand on August 21-23 en route to a Nepal conference.

“How can this cost be authorized when the minister was asked to return to Colombo (on that trip) immediately by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the grounds that the minister did not get approval from the president before leaving the country,” one source said, adding that Bandaranaike had sought permission from Rajapaksa to attend the BIMSTEC meeting in Nepal but failed to mention the Bangkok tour in it.

The sources said both Bandaranaike and Nanayakkara were guilty of not seeking approval or permission for events they had decided without following normal procedures. This is not the first time the minister has taken Nanayakkara to task. Earlier, he blamed Nanayakkara for organising the Sharukh Khan show and then a post-tsunami drumming exhibition in Colombo. The Tourist Board has been funding all the minister’s official trips.

They said the last time a public officer left the country without permission, he was subject to disciplinary action and jailed for a few days. This was the fate of former Tea Research Institute Director Dr Ziyad Mohamed who joined a crucial tea delegation to Japan pending approval for his trip. He was sacked but reinstated in the job by the president after it was found that delay in getting approval was due to the intervening public holidays and no fault of the former director, the sources said.

The sources said Bandaranaike came across the board paper by chance when it was shown to him by another director. Board papers haven’t been sent in the past year to either the minister or the Tourism Ministry Secretary (the chief accounting officer of a ministry and all departments under that and who is also responsible to parliament).

In the meantime, the minister was also preparing to fly to Las Vegas on a 3-week holiday on December 12 – at a time when the tourist industry is facing a major crisis at home.