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He said the Establishments and Organizations Division of the Presidential Secretariat serves all the institutions and absorbs the bulk of the expenditure.
“This expenditure therefore represents a large number of institutions and not only expenditure allocated to the President,” the former President said in the release.
He further explained that the actual sum allocated to the Office of the President for 2015 was Rs. 3.754 billion, which included Rs. 1 billion allocated for the construction of various community projects around the country.
If this item is removed, the expenditure on the President’s Office is reduced to the Rs. 2.75 billion that is said to be the new allocation for the President, he noted.
Clearing the reports on a special plane ordered for his exclusive at a cost of $ 16 million, the former president said no plane was ever ordered for his use. The item in question was a complimentary VIP conversion kit to install a cubicle with special facilities for special customers on commercial flights offered by the Airbus Industries free of charge when the national carrier SriLankan Airlines ordered new aircraft. The price quoted is the only the manufacturer’s indicative value of the kit, he clarified. Rajapaksa said the Government has mentioned the presidential residences in such a manner as to convey the impression that he had built them for his use.
He said none of the presidential residencies were built during his tenure and all those presidential residences in Anuradhapura, Embilipitiya, Mahiyangana and Kataragama were built by President Premadasa and Temple Trees, President’s House and the residences in Nuwara Eliya and Kandy had been used by heads of State and government since the colonial era.
He welcomed the initiative to open the Temple Trees and President’s House for public viewing because tens of thousands of schoolchildren from rural and remote areas and adults toured Temple Trees when he was occupying it.
“It was indeed a pleasure to meet and interact with them and to find out snags in development in their areas,” he said.
Addressing the issue that the vehicles of the Presidential Secretariat had not been returned, the President said the places where the vehicles were ‘discovered’ and found ‘abandoned’ are actually official vehicle yards of the Presidential Secretariat.
The vehicles found in Pitakotte are mostly high security vehicles dating from the 1980s which were condemned but cannot be auctioned off as per the normal procedure, he said.
The details of other vehicles that had been issued to various officers and institutions under the Presidential Secretariat should be known to the Establishments and Organizations Division and can easily be traced by perusing the register maintained for the purpose, Rajapaksa noted.
