Hon. (Dr.) Harsha de Silva

¶ 01 No, I was given 14 minutes. Please give me those two extra minutes.

¶ 02 They show that you cannot purchase a unit at Rs. 20. Who says it is Rs. 20? Calculations show that, if done fairly, a unit would be Rs. 43.25. Although it was said this is a dual-fuel power plant — and they even boasted about it — it is not dual-fuel. Not a single metric ton of LNG has ever been brought. It runs on diesel. If it runs on diesel, the cost is Rs. 728 per unit. Now think whether there is a conflict here or not. Did what the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption mentioned actually happen? Who are on these Boards of Directors? Whose interests are at play? Who was or is the CEB Chairman? We still do not know. At one time they say one thing; later they say something else. If we talk about bribery today, we must also talk about these conflicts of interest. That is exactly what the full-page advertisement sponsored from Japan today points to. I told them to publish these in Sinhala as well.

¶ 03 Finally, I want to speak about the e-NIC procurement. We have repeatedly discussed here that there is an agreement with India to establish a Unique ID — our digital infrastructure. Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya has been driving that. We spoke in this Parliament on 11 March about it. We requested: please do not run a parallel project. If we are doing the Unique ID with Indian funding, there is no need for plastic cards. But you are running a parallel e-NIC project. While spending on that, you are trying to introduce a polycarbonate card for this. We showed that a polycarbonate card costs between USD 1.50 and 2 per card. If a card is absolutely needed, get a simple PVC card — that would cost only 20 to 30 US cents. We asked not to proceed. We even spoke to Chairman Hans Wijayasuriya about this. He accepted that there is an issue and said he would look into it. On 07 April, Cabinet decides to purchase 15 million polycarbonate cards. What are you doing? There is no necessity to buy 15 million polycarbonate cards. Is there a conflict of interest here? If not, why do this? If not necessary, it is not necessary.

¶ 04 You say meals are increased by Rs. 300 here, and you cut Rs. 500 there. That is not the point. There is large-scale corruption and large-scale conflicts of interest. Please look at this. I do not have time to speak further.

¶ 05 Madam Presiding Member, this is what I wished to highlight. Yes, we provide full support to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, including all necessary funds. But just as you investigate the OIC who took Rs. 500,000, please also look into these major issues I raised, including conflicts of interest. With that, I conclude. Thank you.