Misdeeds of SL tourism officials during poll exposed

The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB) has allegedly misused state resources and public money amounting to millions of rupees to promote the former president and the United Peoples Freedom Alliance ( UPFA) during presidential and the recent Uva Provincial Council elections, trade unions alleged.

A trade union official told the Business Times that the SLTPB had spent over Rs. 114 million on advertisements and other propaganda activities of the former president during his election campaign, by using funds ostensibly approved for tourism-related campaigns.

An expeditious process of settling dues for advertising agencies which spearheaded Rajapaksa's election campaign propaganda activities was executed by two senior officials on January 11, three days after the presidential election, he revealed.

The Business Times was given documents relating to this expenditure.

At the request of the unions, two former Ministers of Tour- ism Nandana Gunathilaka and Achala Jagoda, visited the office this week and urged these two officers to stop payments until a new Minister of Tourism is appointed.

A former bureau official said that there has never been a time when their funds were spent on election campaigns.

“There were requests during our time too but we politely refused. There are ways of refusing these requests while not offending higher ups,” he said.

Unions are also raising questions and presenting documents over irregular appointments in the ministry by for- mer Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundera, who was also handling tourism as Economic Development Ministry Secretary.

Union officials alleged that many illegal appointments, promotions and recruitments were made to facilitate the presidential election and undertake by two hand- picked officials at the behest of higherups

On Monday, the UNP- controlled Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya branch foiled an attempt to remove a large number of files from the bureau office pertaining to the election cam- paign propaganda work.

Among the allegations are that the SLTPB released Rs. 90 million for propaganda activities during the Uva Provincial Council election.

A sum of Rs. 10 million was been spent under the cover of promoting local tourism to distribute food parcels and over 15,000 t- shirts with the printed UPFA logo among the people during the last three days of election campaign.

SLTPB has also released finances to fund a huge poster campaign stating this printing order was to promote domestic tourism, union officials allege.