The Hon. (Dr.) Susil Ranasinghe

¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members have repeatedly raised questions in this House regarding LRC lands, and I have answered several times. Many irregularities have occurred with LRC lands. Chief among them, we see multiple ways in which “games” have been played with these lands.

¶ 02 First, some have assumed ministerial portfolios for lands just to play games with LRC lands.

¶ 03 Second, certain groups among officials — not all — of the Department have engaged in such “games” with LRC lands. Some information is retrievable, some is not, and records have been manipulated. We are investigating these with public and MP complaints and available information.

¶ 04 Third, not only lands, even the LRC fund took a “hit.” Recently COPE revealed that LRC funds were used for an organic fertilizer project, wasting about Rs. 350 million.

¶ 05 Another issue is that during election times, supporters were recruited into LRC, creating an excess of staff who can neither be made permanent nor productively engaged.

¶ 06 Looking at all this, instead of asking how to use LRC lands to contribute to the economy and how to grant people title and access to make use of them, in the past many acted on how to benefit personally from them. We have now prepared a plan. On one hand we are investigating how these occurred; COPE also revealed some matters. As I said, we are preparing a plan to use LRC lands for residential, agricultural, and industrial purposes to contribute to the economy. Claims of “not knowing” about certain lands are also a ruse to misuse them. We are investigating, preparing procedures, and have begun a program to digitize the LRC. These are complex issues, but we are intervening to regularize the work.