Tuesday, 28th October 2014
Chamikara Weerasinghe
Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Vigneshwaran in a letter circulated by him to the international media and ambassadors of foreign countries, which subsequently reached the hands of the visiting Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, had reportedly said that the Northern Provincial Council Governor gets more money from the government than the Council itself.
Northern Provincial Council Governor G.A. Chandrasiri yesterday said he was surprised when Commonwealth Secretary General Sharma who met him at his office in Jaffna on Sunday morning, asked him whether he has been given more money by the government than the Northern Provincial Council. Chandrasiri said he was surprised by this question and at the same time was curious.
“I told Commonwealth Secretary General Sharma very clearly, according to the Provincial Council system of Sri Lanka, the Governor does not get money and that all the funds and allocations in their entirety made by the Treasury goes to the Northern Provincial Council,” he said.
“The Governor can’t get any money from anywhere unless the Northern Provincial Council allocates,” Chandrasiri explained.
“The Council allocated Rs. 5 million for the Governor this year. In addition to that there will be an allocation to pay the salaries of his staff and to cover recurrent expenditure. I was surprised upon learning that this ill-conceived and fallacious statement has been documented and communicated to the world in the form of a letter, which was signed by a responsible public representative of the calibre of the Northern Province Chief Minister,” he said.
“I was told that this letter has reached the hands of many ambassadors, and political circles abroad. I told the Commonwealth Secretary General that I am sorry that I am not aware about this letter signed by Chief Minister Vigneshwaran. This is a very damaging statement on the country and the government by Chief Minister Wigneshwaran. I am about to sign a letter demanding this letter from Chief Minister Vigneshwaran,” Governor Chandrasiri said.
“The Tamil National Alliance members of the Northern Provincial Council led by Chief Minister Vigneshwaran should stop spreading lies, which they seem to be doing on a global scale as is apparent from this situation. How can they even allude that they did not get any money from the government.
For this financial year alone the government gave them Rs. 1,500 million as a Provincial Specific Development Grant. On top of that a Rs. 80 million criteria based grant was given to them. To pay salaries of around 26,000 people in the NPC, the government has paid money to the Northern Provincial Council separately,” he pointed out.
“Out of the Rs. 1,500 million given by the government to develop the province, the NPC has used only Rs. 400 million and the rest of money had to be allocated for the next year,” he said.
From : http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local/governor-challenges-contents-cm-s-letter
