Govt vows to take stern actions against fraud & corruption in transport sector

President Maithripala Sirisena directed the chairmen of Provincial Road Passenger Transport Authorities to initiate a proper program to prevent charging illegal taxes from bus owners and the drivers, President Media Unit said.

He said that the new government is paying special attention on these corrupt practices for quite a long time and emphasized that the government, as a regime elected to end the fraud, corruption and irregularities in every field and change the adverse situations in the country would take strict decisions against these activities.

President Sirisena made these remarks at a special meeting held yesterday at the Presidential Secretariat to discuss about the issues in transport sector.

“Though the previous government did not interfere into that matter, the new government will take actions to prevent fraud and corruption in every field including transport sector”, the President said.

The Provincial Ministers of Transport from all nine provinces in the island participated in this discussion. Even though we function as nine provinces as a country we should take steps according to a single policy to solve issues relating to the field of transport, the President said.

Many issues were discussed during the talks, like failure to achieve expected revenue even though the buses operate on a joint timetable and issues like several buses running at the same time and the issue of the private buses deliberately plying slowly, obstructing the bus stand premises, creating separate bus stands for long-distance buses and short- distance buses.

The attention of the President was also drawn to the difficulties faced by the officials of the Public Transport Authority. Minister of Transport, Nimal Siripala de Silva, provincial ministers of transport , Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, Mr. Nihal Somaweera, Local government secretaries and other officials participated in this meeting.