RDA identified among State enterprises with huge financial mismanagement 

The Road Development Authority (RDA) was called out recently by parliament as a leading State owned Enterprises with massive scale financial mismanagement as it has failed horribly in managing its finances according to protocols. 

According to Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the RDA is at the forefront among the institutions, which bungled their financial management even when they had the funding. 

“Even if they (RDA) have funds, they have failed to manage them according to Treasury regulations,” Wickremesinghe disclosed in parliament. 
The highways and broader road developments came to the fore in the last 10 years as a fertile ground for corruption, bribery and misappropriation of funds allocated to various projects.
However, nothing has so far been done to prosecute any party involved in the alleged corruption scandals. 

This week, the Cabinet approved to suspend all projects proposed and initiated by former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa under the 2022 budget and to re-allocate those funds to humanitarian needs as the country is on the brink of a hunger scare, after the massive mismanagement and alleged siphoning off of public funds by those who were in power. 
The RDA has also earned a dubious claim for delaying projects and also violating private property rights when rolling out their projects. 

For instance, the RDA took 7 years for a road widening project titled, ‘Improvement and Rehabilitation of Kottawa - Thalagala road’ which was supposed to take only 2 years, under funding from miscellaneous foreign aid. 

Meanwhile, during the project’s implementation stage, the RDA officials also violated private property rights by placing bus stops, completely blocking access to private residences of those who live on either side of the road.  Numerous written requests made to RDA officials by the victims to relocate them fell on deaf ears and officials at all levels did nothing to rectify the wrongdoing they committed and provided only lame excuses.  

The State institutions in Sri Lanka which are established to help the public in their affairs have over the years become breeding grounds for corruption and inefficiency.