5 December 2022 11:35 am Views - 2305
Former President Maithripala Sirisena today denied reports which said he had used 53 percent of the funds allocated for the President's expenditure on his personal staff but he had instead spent it for large scale national level projects.
"A number of print and electronic media have started attacking me quoting the head of Centre for Policy Alternatives Lional Guruge who has sought details on the expenditure which my self and my predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa had spent for our personal staff under the Right to Information Act. However who ever provided information to him has given wrong details," MP Sirisena said.
"I have spent the funds allocated for me for major national level projects. This included the grama Shakthi project, kidney disease prevention program and drug prevention program. I signed documents to sentence some persons who were found guilty on drug related offences to death. The drug issue would not have become serious today if I was allowed to sentence these persons to death during that time. Also I carried out the Smart Sri Lanka program under which 1000 laptop computers were provided to divisional secretaries," he added.
"I only request you to ask these media institutions to correct their reports," he also said.(Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana)