Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says that steps will be taken to bring the Samurdhi Bank under the Central Bank since the Samurdhi Bank is not under any state body's supervision and is not regulated.
Therefore, the Prime Minister said that he has advised to inquire into this and take the financial institution under the Finance Ministry.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced this addressing the United National Party (UNP) May Day rally held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium on Sunday.
Speaking further the Prime Minister said the UNP was able to take control of the Samurdhi Ministry which was assigned to the UNP following the recent cabinet reshuffle and has to take steps to correct the mismanagement. If necessary a new mechanism can be formulated to administer the mechanism.
The Prime Minister further said that he received the statistics of the Samurdhi Ministry operations yesterday and Rs. 25 billion has been allocated for the Ministry for 12 months of this year. However, the Ministry has already spent Rs. 13 billion in the first three months of the year.
"Accordingly, 53% of the total money has been spent in three months. It should only spend 25% for three months. So what happened to the money?" he asked.
The Premier pointed out that the Samurdhi Bank is an institution that was not monitored by any institution while other state financial instruments such as Employees Provident Fund, Public Employees Trust Fund are managed under the Finance Ministry. However, there is no regulation to oversee the Samurdhi Bank.
"Therefore, I inquired about this and advised to take it under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance," he said.
He said all others banks in the country are controlled by the Central Bank, and it is a big problem that only Samurdhi Bank is not under the control of the Central Bank.
"Therefore, I will tell you that Samurdhi Bank will be coming under the control of the Central Bank in the future and In the future, this work would be carried out fairly," the Premier said.
However meanwhile according to ormer minister S.B. DIssanayake, who held the Samurdhi portfolio,assigning the Samurdhi Bank under the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is not at all acceptable. Former Minister of Social Empowerment and Welfare S.B. Dissanayake stated that the approval of two-thirds majority in parliament would be required if that is to be changed under the Samurdhi Authority of Sri Lanka Act.
He stated that the act clearly states that the Samurdhi Bank will not come under the supervision of the Central Bank.
“We will never give the two-thirds of votes needed to change that,” he said.
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