‘Former govt "misused" Rs 28 bn allocated for road development’

By Hasitha Ayeshmantha-June 24, 2015, 6:38 pm 

Minister of Highways and Investment Promotion Kabir Hashim, Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake and Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen.

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said that the former government has ‘misused’ Rs 28 billion which were initially allocated by for road development projects.

Addressing the media at a recent press briefing in Colombo, Finance Minister Karunanayake alleged that the former government has misused Rs.28 billion off a fund which was set-up from loans acquired from the National Savings Bank (NSB) for road development projects. Minister of Highways and Investment Promotion Kabir Hashim and Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen were also present at the briefing.

‘The Opposition keeps on blindly lashing out at the new government claiming that we are acquiring unnecessary debts, but these figures prove that they are the ones who were in debt over their heads. Our investigations have revealed that the former government has acquired a total of Rs.834 billion in debts; this is a substantial amount of debt even considering the development projects, Karunanayake added.

The Finance Minister further stressed that the new government was able to bring down the acquired debt to Rs.584 billion within a short period of time. The minister also remarked that the former government had launched road development projects worth over Rs.594 billion without proper Cabinet approval.

Meanwhile, addressing the gathering, Minister of Highways and Investment Promotion and the General Secretary of the United National Party Kabir Hashim said that the Ministry of Highways is an institution which was criticized massively in the past. He added that even though the former government claims that road development projects were taking place throughout the country, he has received a phenomenal amount of complains from rural areas claiming that that they do not have proper roads.

‘The first thing that came to my attention as soon as I took over the Ministry of Highways was that the ministry lacks transparency when it comes to the funds allocated for the previous government’s road development projects. We have discovered several instances where road development projects were handed out to the contractors without conducting a proper competitive bidding process, Minister Hashim added.

He also maintained that according to the indicators provided by a survey, the cost for 1km of a dual lane road could range from Rs. 75 million to Rs.120 million, depending on the nature of the land. However, the Minister of Highways asserted that the previous government has listed down funds ranging from Rs.200 million to Rs.700 million for 1km of certain road development projects.

‘It was also revealed that the contracts for road development projects were handed out purely through influence and furthermore, it was learnt that a great sum of money could have been saved by cutting off some main contractors who deployed subcontractors for their quota and earned a pure profit by doing nothing. Another substantial amount of funds have gone missing during the time of elections as well, and now as a result certain projects are on hold, he said.

The minister said that all the necessary details have been forwarded to the Financial Crimes Investigations Division (FCID) and that a special anti-corruption committee is appointed to resolve the matter and make sure that the responsible parties are prosecuted by the law.