Fleecing the people: Karu

The Government and its ‘friends’ and racketeers are looting public money, UNP MP Karu Jayasuriya has charged. Jayasuriya, addressing a media briefing last week, claimed that the Government had paid US$ 180 million to a foreign company to construct a road network in the north.“That company has handed the project over to a local company for US$ 80 million. What happened to the USD 100 million?” Jayasuriya asked,


saying it was criminal to allow public funds to be abused that way. “One day the perpetrators of these crimes will have to pay,” he warned.

The senior UNP Parliamentarian said that although the Government was painting a rosy picture with regard to the economy, tragic events unfolding in ordinary homes in the country were disproving these claims.

“A schoolgirl had to steal coconuts to donate Rs. 800 to her school. Families are committing suicide en masse unable to survive. Hundreds of thousands of families are unable to find a meal or two for a day,” Jayasuriya said, adding that it was only the Government and its friends that were not suffering this crushing economic burden. “This is obvious from the way they hoard wealth and purchase property,” he said.

Renewing his call for the enactment of freedom of information legislation, Jayasuriya said the only way to stop this fraud of State funds was to introduce transparency into Government transactions. He said the UNF Government had introduced the Freedom of Information legislation in 2003 but was unable to get passed because Parliament was dissolved.

Jayasuriya said that the Freedom of Information legislation was being introduced all over the world. “In South Asia, only Bhutan and Sri Lanka do not have Right to Information legislation,” he said. Jayasuriya charged that the present Government was afraid to enact freedom of information laws. (DB)