{"id":168594,"date":"2016-10-06T18:11:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T12:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=168594"},"modified":"2016-10-07T13:16:56","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T07:46:56","slug":"ex-igp-mahinda-balasuriyas-preferential-treatment-cost-taxpayers-30-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ex-igp-mahinda-balasuriyas-preferential-treatment-cost-taxpayers-30-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-IGP Mahinda Balasuriya\u2019s Preferential Treatment Cost Taxpayers 30 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Preferential treatment meted out by former IGP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Mahinda+Balasuriya&amp;x=7&amp;y=2\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mahinda Balasuriya<\/span><\/a> to certain politicians has resulted in the country losing at least Rs. 30 million.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_165884\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/former-IGP-Mahinda-Balasuriya.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-165884\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-165884\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/former-IGP-Mahinda-Balasuriya-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Balasuriya\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/former-IGP-Mahinda-Balasuriya-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/former-IGP-Mahinda-Balasuriya-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-165884\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balasuriya<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This came to light during an inquiry carried out by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Serious Acts of Fraud, Corruption and Abuse of Power, State Resources and Privileges (PRECIFAC) which is investigating as to why Balasuriya provided armed police security for members of Wimal Weerawansa\u2019s National Freedom Front (NFF) who were not even MPs.<\/p>\n<p>During the inquiry, the Commission demanded to know on what grounds he provided members of the NFF police officers under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s term as President. These member were provided with at least 15 armed policemen from 2010 to 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the politicians who were provided with armed police protection were not MPs, therefore they were not entitled for police protection. According to the Commission, due to this preferential treatment by Balasuriya, the government had incurred a loss of Rs. 30 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":165884,"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-168594","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 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ex-IGP Mahinda Balasuriya\u2019s Preferential Treatment Cost Taxpayers 30 Million - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ex-igp-mahinda-balasuriyas-preferential-treatment-cost-taxpayers-30-million\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ex-IGP Mahinda Balasuriya\u2019s Preferential Treatment Cost Taxpayers 30 Million - 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