{"id":164291,"date":"2016-06-23T14:27:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T08:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=164291"},"modified":"2016-06-24T11:18:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T05:48:05","slug":"government-suspends-work-at-defence-headquarters-due-to-massive-financial-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/government-suspends-work-at-defence-headquarters-due-to-massive-financial-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Government Suspends Work At Defence Headquarters Due To Massive Financial Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Government has decided to immediately suspend the construction work of the Defence Headquarters in Akuregoda, after information came to light of a huge financial fraud running into billions of rupees.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_144967\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/a-trembling-gotabaya-appears-before-fcid\/gotabaya-4\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-144967\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144967\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-144967\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Gotabaya-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Former secretary to the MOD - Gotabaya\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Gotabaya-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Gotabaya.jpg 625w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-144967\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former secretary to the MOD &#8211; Gotabaya<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Cabinet Spokesman <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Rajitha+Senaratne&amp;x=8&amp;y=3\">Rajitha Senaratne<\/a><\/span> announced that all payments in relation to the construction work at the headquarters, has also been suspended with immediate effect, as the information provided to the Cabinet in relation to the construction of the Rs. 40 billion worth headquarters has been proved to be incorrect.<\/p>\n<p>According to the finding of a special committee, appointed by the President, correct information had not been provided to the cabinet with regard to the consultancy firm selected for the project.<\/p>\n<p>The committee recommended for the immediate suspension of the services and review the payments made to the firms, and to verify if all payments made for the construction of the headquarters were approved by the Cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>According to Senaratne, Rs. 600 million has been paid in excess to the consultancy firm.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s obvious that there has been a huge financial fraud in this project, and we will take steps to expose the culprits behind this and take legal action against them,&#8221; Senaratne vowed.<\/p>\n<p>The project commenced during the tenure of former Defence Secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Gotabaya+Rajapaksa&amp;x=10&amp;y=7\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":144967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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