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| Wednesday, 30 June 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Agriculture Ministry to return luxury vehicles by Nadira Gunatilleke The Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation Ministry will hand over 11 super luxury Government vehicles worth over Rs.30 million to the Presidential Secretariat in order to obtain funds to implement '10,000 tanks rehabilitation project', said Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation Minister Anura Dissanayake. He was addressing a press briefing held at his Ministry yesterday. The minister said that some super luxury vehicles used by former Agriculture and Lands Ministers, their deputies and personal staff are not suitable for a Third World country like Sri Lanka which does not have financial strength for maintaining them. A former minister has spent Rs. 900,000 on a Mercedes Benz car and Rs. 6.2 million had been spent to upgrade it to a bullet proof car. Some vehicles do not have any documents or files and the expenditure how much money spent to buy those vehicles. One of those cars runs only seven kilometres on a litre of petrol. One has to spend Rs. 6,000 to go to Kurunegala and return to Colombo in such a car. This is equivalent to a graduate's starting salary. Deputy Minister Anura Dissanayake said bribery and corruption was rampant in the Ministry during the past regime and all divisions that probe such activities and the audit division were neglected and forced to close down. A special investigations unit has been established under the purview of Ministry Secretary Tissa Warnasuriya to probe the corruptions. Legal action will be taken against the culprits despite their status according to the results of the investigations. Former ministers and their personal staff had used several vehicles belonging to different institutions of the ministry. Arrangements will be made shortly to distribute ministry vehicles among the officials who work in outstation projects. |
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