Courtesy The Daily Mirror

While rejecting allegations that his government had misappropriated some Rs. 28b at the Highway ministry, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa today charged that the current government is engaging in a smear campaign against him and an attempt to belittle the solid achievements of his government in infrastructure development.

Issuing a statement the former President said;

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe alleged yesterday, that I had in my capacity as the Minister of Highways taken a loan of Rs. 55 billion from the National Savings Bank for 28 road projects but that Rs. 28 billion of this money had been used for other purposes such as helicopter rides and providing free meals to people.

This is a part of the ongoing smear campaign against me and an attempt to belittle the solid achievements of my government in infrastructure development. The Road Development Authority did indeed obtain a long term credit facility of Rs. 55 billion from the NSB for 28 road projects. The Rs. 28 billion referred to by the Prime Minister is not a part of the Rs. 55 billion long term loan.

It is a separate short-term loan that was negotiated between the Road Development Authority and the NSB to meet payments relating to various ongoing projects.

The Treasury has in fact issued ‘letters of comfort’ to the NSB asking them to release this short-term loan to the RDA to be settled later through the 2015 budget. All road projects are evaluated by RDA engineers and tender boards and payments are certified based on the work done.

The Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) can verify the work carried out by the RDA on the basis of the NSB credit facilities. The Rs. 28 billion short-term loan from the NSB was utilised for most part to meet the ‘local component’ requirements in projects funded by foreign donors like JICA and the ADB.

Some of it was used for the maintenance and repair of existing roads. In any event all the money was spent on Road Development. As for the other Rs. 55 billion taken from the NSB, some of the projects coming under that long-term loan are still ongoing and the entire amount has not yet been utilised.

I wish to state that provision was made in my last budget for the repayment of the entire short-term loan of Rs. 28 billion to the NSB and it was approved by parliament.

The reason why the present government is concocting various stories about this Rs. 28 billion is obviously because they have mis-spent the money allocated in my budget and are now unable to make the scheduled payment to the NSB. –

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