The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe

¶ 01 Hon. Member, this is my answer to your first supplementary question.

¶ 02 Hon. Speaker, the funds invested by this SANASA bank belong to the members. There are 379 small SANASA societies in the Gampaha District and their members’ money is included. There are also over 3,000 on the other side of the membership network, and in total about Rs. 3,000 million is involved. As I stated in my main reply, these incidents occurred between 2010 and 2019. We are in the process of imposing prohibitions and taking action against 16 committee members.

¶ 03 As you noted, both the Co-operative Department and the Provincial Co-operative authorities failed in part of their duties at the time—either by omission or by insufficient intervention. Inadequate auditing, failure to take timely legal action against those accused, and not acting at the required moment is why depositors are now in crisis. As a Ministry, we are following up.

¶ 04 Currently, 68 co-operative societies that lend have financial crises, particularly in the Western Province. Depositors’ money was invested in various projects—some apartment buildings were planned but not built, among other investments. There are questions about the investment frameworks and whether interest returns are realized. Therefore, on the Attorney General’s advice, we have taken necessary action. Since the Co-operative Department’s work is a central government function, upon receiving complaints we act through the Western Province Co-operative Commissioner via the Provincial Ministry to intervene and expedite investigations. That is our immediate intervention and we are expediting the delayed inquiries.