Weerawansa Family And Friends’ Joyride At State Expense
Wimal Weerawansa
- A fleet of 40 vehicles hired for State Engineering used by ex-minister’s cronies
by Nirmala Kannangara-Saturday, March 26, 2016
Weerasangilige Wimal Weerawansa who mouths slogans and gives breast-beating displays of patriotism from political platforms despite his involvement in large-scale corruption and undercover activities, has once again been exposed as a corrupt politician. This time around, details have emerged of how he allegedly hired a fleet of 40 luxury vehicles spending millions of rupees of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, to have relatives and friends travel in luxury.
The Sunday Leader this week exposes how Weerawansa misused State Engineering Corporation (SEC) funds to pay the hiring charges for this fleet of vehicles when he was Housing and Construction Minister in the Rajapaksa regime. Earlier this newspaper exposed how Weerawansa who was operating a small telecommunication centre in Kadawatha and whose sole asset was a four perch land in Millegahawatte, Pahala Biyanwila in Kadawatha at the time he entered parliament in 2000, became a multi-millionaire in no time after he extended his support to Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2008. Despite portraying himself as a patriotic, clean politician, the renegade Marxist has now been exposed as a wheeler-dealer who made money through various nefarious deals.
When accused of hiring vehicles using state funds for his relatives, Weerawansa had responded that none of these vehicles were used by his relatives or friends but were used for official work.
Be that as it may, The Sunday Leader is in possession of details of the 40 SEC vehicles hired during Weerawansa’s tenure. However the details of how some of these vehicles were assigned to are not known as all the detailed files relating to this fraud have been taken over by the Commission to Investigate Allegation into Bribery or Corruption, said Deputy Chairman SEC, Mahen Pelpola.
