Weliamuna Inquiry Costs Three Supreme Court Judges’ Combined Annual Salaries

May 14, 2015

“The money spent for Sri Lankan airlines is very large. If we are looking at it comparatively, it will come to more than the salaries of three Supreme Court Judges for an entire year.” a judge told Colombo Telegraph.

The first government-commissioned inquiry into the previous government’s corruption and malpractices, the Weliamuna inquiry has cost taxpayers Rs 3.5 million.

Weliamuna

“What is the exact use for which this amount of money was spent? It is just a report as a propaganda exercise. From what I can see after reading this so called committee report or Weliamuna report, it merely repeats a lot of what had already been said. Nothing flows in law from it. To do anything from the legal viewpoint which will pass the test of the law, criminal investigations need to done all over again, using state funds again. The government must stop engaging in these trivial and political exercises. This is quite apart from Weliamuna or whoever who had agreed to engage in these inquiries. This sum of money is very large. If we are looking at it comparatively, it will come to more than the combined salaries of three Supreme Court judges for an entire year. What is the character of the work done by them and what is the kind of work done here? Also I do not agree about this talk that, as a professional, it is justified that he is paid such a big sum of money. He is supposed to be a human rights lawyer, right? Then he must be known as just another lawyer doing work for big bucks, like these commercial lawyers” said the Judge, who requested anonymity.

The judge also said “a SC judge’s monthly salary is Rs. 130,000 and this so called investigation costs 3 SC judges annual salaries.”

As reported, Weliamuna speaking to Colombo Telegraph confirmed that he along with his team comprising three other members U.H. Palihakkara, B.A.W. Abeywardane and M.K. Bandara were paid Rs 3.5 million. At that time Colombo Telegraph did request for a breakdown from the chairman of Transparency International Sri Lanka, Weliamuna but he was not in a position to do so. A subsequent email was sent to him seeking this information. Weliamuna has not responded to that question as yet. We asked Weliamuna once again and requested him to furnish at least the amount he did receive as his fee but he is yet to respond to that question as well.                                                    Read More