A land transaction irregularity involving Jaffna Hospital Development Association has been unearthed by Auditor General’s Department.
Letters had been exchanged with the District Secretary of Jaffna with respect to the Director of the Teaching Hospital of Jaffna and the Hospital Development Association purchasing a land.
It was verified according to those letters that an NGO, named Jaffna Teaching Hospital Development Association was expecting to purchase the land.
However, by exceeding the powers vested in the District Secretary and the Director of the Hospital, public funds amounting to Rs. 12.5 million had been released to the Hospital by the District Secretary without any authority or approval whatsoever, and then again the Director of the Hospital had released those funds to the Hospital Development Association.
The Hospital Development Association had purchased the land under their name by paying a sum of Rs. 12.5 million. Instead of purchasing the land by directly paying to the owner, an indirect payment method had been followed to conceal the irregularity of the transaction.
Before the funds being released by the District Secretariat for purchasing the land, it was necessary to have been satisfied with the transparency and fairness of the transaction by verifying the information such as history, plan , and assessment value of the land through folios.
However, it had not been so done. The land had been purchased on 02 August 2011, and later, the assessment report had been obtained on 19 September 2011.
The assessment report had been issued with the objective of providing the land owner with the value that he had expected. Furthermore, the land had been assessed by considering the land as having a commercial value
(LI)