• District lands distributed to those living outside the District per subject Minister’s recommendations’ list  

The Mahaweli Authority said that issues related to releasing lands owned by the Authority have arisen as a result of giving lands located in another region to people who are living in different Districts outside the District where the distributed lands are located.

The Authority said that according to the powers assigned to the Minister in charge by the Mahaweli Authority Act, the Authority is only assigned to distribute the land according to the list selected by the Minister and that the Authority is bound to implement the Minister’s recommendations.

Leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National People’s Power (NPP) and Opposition Parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake, during a recent probe by the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), claimed that he received 224 copies of letters sent by the office of the Minister of the Mahaweli to officials, asking them to release Mahaweli land to cronies of the Government.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (14), the Director (Lands) of the Mahaweli Authority, Priyanka Bandara Dissanayake said that the allegations made by various parties based on incidents without any proper understanding of the procedure are baseless. He said that the Authority does not act beyond the powers assigned to the Authority. “The particular allegation is related to the recent distribution of 705 lands. The Mahaweli Authority Act empowers the Minister to make recommendations on a selective basis. The Authority is only vested with the power of inspection. After the Minister sends the recommendations, we have to check the person’s age, ensure he/she is a Sri Lankan citizen and whether they have lands more than 50 acres. So, we can be responsible that there is no legal problem here,” he said. He also said that the Mahaweli Authority is only responsible for the land distributed through the Land Secretariat and the land distributed through the tender procedure. “During the implementation of these recommendations, there has been a problem when it comes to Districts. The people of the Polonnaruwa District have been given land in the Mahaweli H region. The Tambuttegama problem is one such problem. The problem has arisen when the people of those regions go and work on the land that they were given in another region to where they live,” he said.

When contacted, the Mahaweli Authority Director General Keerthi Kotagama said that this matter was explained at length in the recently held COPE meeting and that therefore, there is no need of replying to those baseless allegations. He said that the Authority has no power to overrule the orders given by the subject Minister which are legal.