Minister Harrison’s ‘Yahapaalanaya’

Aug 11, 2016

P. Harrison was one of the opposition UNP MPs who had publicly and strongly criticized the then Rajapaksa regime. He criticized on a daily basis the corruption, fraud, abductions and repression that had been committed by the Rajapaksa rule.

Now, Harrison is a cabinet minister. The social services, welfare and livestock development minister in the ‘Yahapaalana’ government following the presidential election, he is presently the rural economic affairs minister.

 

While in the opposition, he might have spoken against the then government’s corruption and fraud, but after coming to power, minister Harrison has forgotten all those. An audit of the ministry of social services, welfare and livestock development has found that during the period he was its minister, he had used nine state-owned vehicles for his security purposes. According to government regulations, a cabinet minister can have a maximum of three vehicles for his security. There is no reason that he was unaware of that regulation. Four of the vehicles had been used along with ministry drivers, while there are no records as to who had served as drivers for the other five vehicles.

However, it is mentioned that three of them had been given to Milco. However, an investigation by deputy auditor general Ambanwela has revealed that Milco had not been given the vehicles.

 

If any ministry has a surplus of vehicles, the finance ministry should be informed and the surplus vehicles handed over. However, the livestock ministry has taken no such action.

 

It is now known that minister Harrison had misled the elections commissioner at the last election and used these vehicles for his electioneering. Once an election is announced, ministries and other state institutions should send to the elections commissioner the lists of vehicles available to each of them.  The list sent by Harrison’s ministry made no mention of two vehicles. 

In that manner, he has cheated the elections commissioner, gone against cabinet decisions and used state vehicles for his election activities. Meeting on 15 July 2015, the cabinet decided that a politician using state vehicles for his election campaign should make a payment of Rs. 100,000 per vehicle. However, minister Harrison has so far paid no such money. Once an election is announced, a state vehicle can be used by the private secretary to a minister only, but minister Harrison’s personal staff had used all five vehicles during the election period.