News

COPE chair criticizes Mahaweli Authority

Published

1 week ago

May 25, 2023

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The Committee on Public Enterprise evaluates the current performance of the Mahaweli Authority following the Auditor General’s Report of 2020 & 2021.

Professor Ranjith Bandara, Chairman of the Committee on Public Enterprise took exception at the outdated ‘Vision’ statement and Key Performance Indicators of the Authority following consistent failure to deliver its services with integrity and quality.
The Chairman began proceedings with a stern look at the inability of the body to ‘raise the living standards of the citizens’ – a mantra clearly highlighted in the body’s vision statement. He directed the Director-General of the Mahaweli Authority to examine its policy and practices and re-invent the fundamentals of the body itself to reflect the modern world better. On this note, the Committee further queried the lack of digital infrastructure in the land reservation process and directed the Authority to take measures to strengthen it.

Regarding the conveyance of lands, the Committee directed the Authority to submit the following:
• Report on existing land conveyance procedure to be submitted within 02 weeks.
• Report on how lands conveyed for investment purposes was completed including details of the investor, purpose of investments, etc. to be submitted within 02 weeks.
• Report on illegal constructions taking place within the purview of the body to be submitted within 01 month.

Following an incongruence between the annual report submitted to parliament and the data sought out by the Auditor General’s office, an urgent report of all lands released in 2022 was requested. This comes on the heels of the President’s directive where a stay order was made on the issuance of lands.

The Recruitment Process Management was scrutinized, and it was found that there were vacancies that had not been filled up owing to suspected reservations for promotions to the existing staff internally. The Chairman of COPE immediately directed that the vacancies be filled within the next 60 days.
The Committee directed that all issues be revisited for review and accountability on 21-07-2023.

(Prof.) Ranjith Bandara, M.P., (Chair), Hon. Jagath Pushpakumara, Hon. Janaka Wakkumbura M.P., M.P, Hon. Shantha Bandara, Hon. Mahindananda Aluthgamage M.P., Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekera M.P., Hon. Eran Wickremaratne M.P., Hon. Jayantha Samaraweera M.P., Hon. Sanjeeva Edirimanna M.P., Hon. Jagath Kumara Sumithraarachchi, M.P., Hon. (Major) Sudarshana Denipitiya, M.P., Hon. Premnath Dolawatte, Attorney-at-Law M.P., Hon. M Rameshwaran, M.P., Hon. (Mrs.) Rajika Wickramasinghe, M.P., Hon. Madhura Withanage, M.P., Prof. Charitha Herath M.P. were present

News

Litro slashes gas cylinder prices

Published

7 mins ago

June 3, 2023

editor

Litro Gas Lanka, one of the country’s two leading suppliers of domestic Liquefied Petroleum (LP) gas, has decided to slash the prices of its products.

The price reduction will be effective from midnight tomorrow (June 04), according to Litro chairman and CEO Muditha Peiris.

News

Three state bank employees arrested for stealing pawned gold jewellery

Published

12 mins ago

June 3, 2023

editor

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested three employees of a state bank in Oddamavadi for stealing pawned gold jewellery to the tune of LKR 20 million.

According to the police, among the arrestees are the deputy manager, operations manager and the service assistant of the said state bank.

The trio is accused of stealing pawned 873g of gold jewellery from the safety-deposit box of the state bank.

The CID team had initiated probes into the matter after receiving a complaint about several pieces of gold jewellery that had gone missing from the depository of the bank.

An individual, upon visiting the bank to retrieve the gold jewellery he had pawned in November last year to obtain a loan, had learned that the items were, in fact, missing. After conducting an inspection, the bank employees realized that 13 packets of gold jewellery have been disappeared from the depository.

The bank’s management has suspended the duties of the deputy manager over the incident.

During the interrogations, he had confessed that two other female employees – an operations manager and a service assistant – too were complicit in the theft. They were later placed under arrest by the CID investigators.

They had used the depository keys which were in their possession to steal the gold jewellery on three occasions.

After stealing 13 packets of gold jewellery, the trio had sold them to gold jewellery shops in the area for LKR 13.7 million out of which LKR 5.7 million was retained by the deputy manager to settle a loan. The operations manager, meanwhile, held on to LKR 5 million, which she deposited in a bank for her daughter. The service assistant had purchased a three-wheeler and a piece of land from the LKR 3 million she received.

The trio was remanded until June 16 after being produced before the Valachchenai Magistrate’s Court on Friday (June 02).

News

3 sluice gates of Kukule Ganga reservoir opened

Published

12 hours ago

June 2, 2023

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Three of the four sluice gates of Kukule Ganga reservoir were opened this evening (June 02) as heavy rains were experienced in the catchment areas.

The authorities have advised the people living in low-lying areas of the Kukule Ganga reservoir to be on alert of possible floods.

It is reported that the water levels of the reservoir have increased at an alarming rate after the downpours in the water catchment areas.

Meanwhile, the Irrigation Department issued an ‘Amber’ flood warning for the upper catchment areas of Kuda Ganga sub-basin of Kalu River after heavy rainfall was received.