The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development
Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe said the 2017 handling of SLIIT under the 2015–2019 UNP Government ignored Presidential Commission observations and that the Cabinet at the time bore collective responsibility. He argued that the Rs. 408 million repayment was made from SLIIT funds that belonged to Mahapola, amounting to a serious offence. He said, following COPE recommendations, legal action is being pursued through the CID and Bribery Commission to restore Mahapola’s trusteeship and ownership while retaining SLIIT as an institution, expanding scholarships, and keeping programmes affordable.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, as discussed at the last COPE, the UNP Government of 2015-2019 proceeded in 2017 despite the Presidential Commission’s observations. The entire Cabinet, including the then President and Prime Minister, bears collective responsibility. The Rs. 408 million “repayment” came from SLIIT’s own account—funds which belonged to Mahapola, as SLIIT itself belonged to Mahapola. This is a serious offence. Following COPE recommendations, we are pursuing legal action including referrals to the CID and the Bribery Commission, to hold offenders accountable, to maintain SLIIT as SLIIT while restoring Mahapola’s trusteeship and ownership, expand Mahapola scholarships, and ensure affordable programmes for students.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 11 July 2025 ·No. 1753082553092748 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/21032
Cite as: The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 11 July 2025. No. 1753082553092748. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/21032