State Minister Eran Wickramaratne Defends Right To Steal Public Funds

By Nagananda Kodituwakku –January 5, 2017

Nagananda Kodituwakku

The whole nation is surely very angry about the manner the MPs and Cabinet of Ministers defraud public funds through various means, including the selling of their tax-free car permits to motorcar dealers. The intended purpose of issuance of these permits was to import a vehicle absolutely tax-free and use it to discharge the office of the MP effectively and efficiently and not to abuse it for improper purposes.

However, now it is proven fact that these permits are being abused to defraud over 33 millions rupees of public funds for each vehicle and already over 27 such vehicles have been registered in the RMV in the name of private individuals who are not entitled to enjoy this tax-concession granted only to MPs. I request the readers to check the names in the list and see how many ministers are there and the readers will see Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and the former Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa and many more people, who talks morality in public and practice completely the opposite, deceiving the people at will.

In his campaign for the office of the Executive President, Sirisena, pledged the citizenry to adopt a policy based on corrupt-free administration. Attending the World Anti-Corruption Summit held in London sometime thereafter (on 12th May 2016) he declared that his government is was committed to combat all forms of corruption, an extract of which is reproduced below: ‘… Corruption is one of the factors that promote political violence and other forms of human rights abuses. Sri Lanka went through such a stage during the previous administration.

The people reacted strongly against corruption by changing the corrupt administration by the power of the ballet in January 2015 at the Presidential election and again at the Parliamentary election in the August 2016…’ ‘…We were elected to office on the policy platform of democracy, good governance and rule of law. Therefore, we consider our prime duty is to root out of corruption from the country. We are happy that the summit proposes to establish an International Anti-Corruption Centre, all of us as leaders need to act collectively to strengthen our own law enforcement agencies to track the corrupt and recover the proceeds of corruption…’

In fact the Minister of Finance, Ravi Karunanayake himself condemned this abuse in his maiden budget speech on 20th Nov 2016 as follows:

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