Hundreds of vehicles used by former Secretaries of various ministries were abandoned at the Galle Face Green and several places in Colombo last week.
On Tuesday, September 24 former Ministry Secretaries started parking their official vehicles at the Colombo helipad and the vacant lot alongside Baladaksha Mawatha near the Presidential Secretariat.
While inspecting the vehicles, National Peoples’ Power (NPP) member Wasantha Samarasinghe pointed out how public assets had been misused. “Information on 833 vehicles belonging to the Presidential Secretariat has been recorded. Twenty-nine vehicles have gone missing since 2022. We need to ask the former Presidents if they swallowed those vehicles when they resigned from their posts. There are 253 vehicles belonging to the Presidential Secretariat being used unofficially,” he said.
Samarasinghe said that more details will come to light before the general election and that they are receiving lists of those who should be held accountable for the Easter Sunday attacks, the Bond Scam and Bar Licence scandals.
On Thursday, September 26, President Anura Kumara Dissnayake instructed the CID to trace those responsible for the misuse of these vehicles.
President Dissanayake directed officials to reassign the vehicles for essential public services.
At a media briefing at Galle Face, the President’s Private Secretary, Ananda Wijepala, voiced his disappointment over the misuse of state vehicles by previous regimes.
“These vehicles were distributed by the previous Government after concocting various positions such as advisory posts to give perks to their cronies,” he said. Wijepala said that 107 vehicles have been parked in three locations and that none of the vehicles will be auctioned.
“Akila Viraj, Ruwan Wijewardene, Ashu Marasinghe, Rosy Senanayake, Saman Ratnapriya and Ranjith Keerthi Tennakoon are among those who have returned the vehicles,” he said. He said that the keys of the vehicles have been inventorised. “We will review the inventory and provide them to essential services such as hospitals, the police and the Education Ministry based on their needs. Around 59 vehicles have been obtained from other state institutions by the Presidential Secretariat. We will hand them back to those institutions,” he said.
According to the vehicle inventory, 29 vehicles including motorbikes have gone missing of the 833 vehicle fleet at the Presidential Secretariat. “We will lodge a complaint with the CID regarding the missing vehicles. Around 16 vehicles were purchased for the Presidential Secretariat in 2022 despite the ban on vehicle imports,” he said. People were seen gathering around the Galle Face Green to see the parked vehicles last week. Many expressed shock and anger at how officials of the previous Government had been travelling lavishly while the public had to endure fuel queues, packed buses and trains. “We request that public funds be used for our benefit, not misused like this,” a bystander said.
