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President and PM spends millions of rupees for welfare projects

President and Prime Minister’s offices have spent millions of rupees from the allocations for the welfare programmes during last year, Finance Ministry report revealed.

This money was allocated under the Supplementary Support Services and Contingent Liabilities project under the Expenditure Head 240.

It was implemented by the Department of National Budget in 2018 to facilitate the unforeseen, unexpected or urgent additional fund requirements of spending agencies.

The total budgetary allocation provided under this project was Rs. 313 billion in 2018 including Rs. 95 billion for the Budget Proposals and Rs. 130 billion for implementation of welfare programmes.

President Maithripala Sirisena has spent over Rs.901 million for such welfare programmes including Rs.187 million for recurrent expenditure and Rs.713 .69 million for capital expenditure during the year under review, the report highlighted.

The money was spent for the introduction of Development Programmes in the Rural Sector, procure vehicles for the use of Sri Lanka Amarapura Sanga Sabha Mahanayaka Most Venerable Kotugoda Dhammawasa Thero , Settle the outstanding bills & Smallholder Agribusiness Partnership Programme, personal emoluments & development assistance to National Economic Council as per the Budget Proposal, purchase of local potatoes through Sri Lanka Consumer Co-operative Societies Federation Ltd, expenditure of National Salaries & Cardre Commission, rehabilitation & improvement of Capital Assets and purchase of five hand held explosive detectors to security division.

The welfare programme expenses of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe were around Rs.190 million including Rs. 177 million for recurrent expenditure and Rs.13 million for capital expenditure. The total amount was around 21 percent of the President’s expenses, the Finance Ministry report revealed.

This money was spent for the implementation of Secretariat to Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanism as per the Budget Proposal and to procure a vehicle in 2018.

During the year those allocations were distributed among the Spending Agencies in line with the specific guidelines stipulated in printed Estimates 2018.

(LI)