{"id":166267,"date":"2016-08-10T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T18:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=166267"},"modified":"2016-08-10T00:09:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T18:39:11","slug":"sb-defends-basil-over-divi-neguma-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sb-defends-basil-over-divi-neguma-case\/","title":{"rendered":"SB Defends Basil Over Divi Neguma Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Social Empowerment and Welfare <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=S.+B.+Dissanayake&amp;x=12&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">S. B. Dissanayake<\/span><\/a> has come forward to rescue former Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Basil+Rajapaksa&amp;x=11&amp;y=3\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Basil Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>, saying that the former Minister has not committed any wrong in distributing GI Pipes which were purchased from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Divi+Neguma&amp;x=10&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Divi Neguma<\/span><\/a> funds and distributed among local government institutions during the run up to the 2015 Presidential Election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t see any fault committed by Basil in this case as pointed out by the FCID,\u201d he told a news conference in Colombo on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Cabinet Minister, proper procedure was followed when calling for tenders and when the GI Pipes were distributed among the local government institutions. \u201cMaybe the timing was wrong but it definitely is not a fraud as charged by the FCID,\u201d Dissanayake said.<\/p>\n<p>Rajapaksa is currently out on bail over his alleged involvement in a financial misappropriation of Rs. 33 million in purchasing GI Pipes from the Divi Neguma funds. \u201cThere is no law that says one cannot distribute pipes during an election, maybe the timing was off, but that doesn\u2019t mean he has committed a crime,\u201d Dissanayake said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Minister it seems like the FCID has got it wrong. \u201cThere are other charges against Basil, and those are being investigated. I don\u2019t know about those or whether he committed wrong in those cases, but I can tell you clearly that in this Divi Neguma case he is not at fault,\u201d Dissanayake said.<\/p>\n<p>When a journalist asked as to why the FCID was then terming this as a fraud, Dissanayake said, \u201cYou will have to ask the FCID that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBBCSinhala%2Fvideos%2F674616509362767%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"639\" height=\"357\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":113004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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