News
COPE asks Sri Lanka Insurance to make its subsidiary Litro appear before it
The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) on Wednesday instructed the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation to ensure that the representatives of its subsidiaries, Litro Gas Lanka Limited and Litro Gas Terminal Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., appeared before the COPE and to conduct a government audit on the two institutions.
This decision was taken while the COPE was questioning the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC).
When the matter was taken up COPE Chairman Prof. Charitha Herath said that Litro Gas Lanka Ltd and Litro Gas Terminal Lanka (Pvt) Ltd had gone to court stating that they could not be audited by the government under the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.
Prof. Herath said he believed it was appropriate to refrain from discussing those institutions.
However, the members of the COPE were of the view that those institutions should be audited by the government as SLIC owned 99% of the shares in those two institutions.
Therefore, the committee insisted that those institutions should be summoned before the COPE and instructed SLIC to handle it.
Ministers Mahinda Amaraweera and Sarath Weerasekara, State Ministers Susil Premajayantha, Indika Anuruddha, Ajith Nivard Cabraal and Members of Parliament Anura Dissanayake, S.M. Marikkar, Jagath Pushpakumara, Rauf Hakeem, Harsha de Silva, S. Rasamanikkam, Premanath C. Dolawatta were present at the meeting.
Accepting deposits from political parties and independent groups who intend to contest the forthcoming Local Authorities Election ended at 12noon today [19].
Deposits were accepted at respective District Secretariats from 3rd March 2025.
The Elections Commission has announced that the deadline for the accepting of nominations for the LA poll is set to conclude at 12:00 noon tomorrow (20).
It has been reported that the former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon has appeared before the Matara Magistrate’s Court this morning (19),
The former IGP had been evading arrest after the Matara Magistrate’s court had ordered his arrest regarding a shooting incident that took place in front of the W15 Hotel Pelena, Weligama, Matara, in 2023.
The government has begun recovering funds obtained by former Lands and Land Development, Environment and Wildlife Resources Minister SM Chandrasena for the Janatha Lanka Chilli Marketing Limited (JLCML), which he headed, Parliament was informed yesterday.
Agriculture, Livestock, Land, and Irrigation Minister Namal Karunaratne said that as the Chairman of JLCML, Chandrasena had obtained a loan of Rs. 1,275,000 from the Mihintale Govijana Seva Bank in 2001.
The principal of the loan had not been repaid until the end of last year. “After we came to power, we demanded that the loan be settled. Then, we discovered that the interest on the loan had not been paid for the past 24 years, and attempts had been made to have the loan written off. We stopped that and are now in the process of recovering the interest of Rs. 1,975,233 on the loan,” Karunaratne said.
Karunaratne added that JLCML was registered as a company with the Registrar of Companies on March 21, 2001. As Chairman of the company, Chandrasena requested a loan of Rs. 10 million on April 19, 2001, for the purpose of purchasing chillies from farmers in 12 farmer colonies in the Mihintale Agrarian Service area.
The request was approved by the Mihintale Agrarian Service Committee on the same day and referred to the Anuradhapura District Agrarian Operations Committee, which approved it on April 23, 2001. However, the Agriculture Development Commissioner General recommended that a loan of Rs. 1.2 million would suffice for this purpose. JLCML took the loan and failed to repay it until the end of last year. When the matter was raised, the principal was paid, and we are now in the process of recovering the interest that was not paid for the past 24 years,” Karunaratne added.
By Saman Indrajith
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