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President clarifies why Samurdhi Ministry was not given to S.B.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga responding to several media reports regarding her refusal to include former Samurdhi Minister, S. B. Dissanayake in the Cabinet has issued a clarification on the matter which says:

1, An investigation is now under way into the defrauding of a sum of Rs. 850 million of the compulsory individual savings of Samurdhi (welfare) recipients.

2. This Investigation by the Bribery and Corruption Commission is now almost complete.

3. The Auditor General's Department is carrying out another investigation into this matter.

4. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is investigating an alleged forgery of a Last Will and Testament whereby Mr. S. B. Dissanayake's wife has become the beneficiary and inherited 280 perches of land valued at approximately Rs. 140 million in the vicinity of the Parliament in Sri Jayawardenepura, Kotte.

5. The CID is only awaiting a statement from Mrs. Dissanayake who hurriedly left the country when asked to report to the CID to obtain a statement.

6. Mr. S. B. Dissanayake has abused the Office of the President of Sri Lanka in very lowly and deplorable terms on a private television channel on several occasions.

7. Her Excellency the President has informed the Prime Minister that she would be willing to waive the immunity enjoyed by virtue of her office to have a top-level inquiry conducted into the allegations made personally against her by Mr. S. B. Dissanayake that she was a 'rogue'.

8. When Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe presented the list of proposed Cabinet Ministers to Her Excellency she had informed the Prime Minister that it was improper to have such a person in the Cabinet until the investigations were complete.

9. The Prime Minister had at this point appealed to Her Excellency the President that Mr. Dissanayake be given some Cabinet portfolio. After much discussion and consideration Her Excellency reluctantly agreed to assign him another portfolio other than the subject of Samurdhi.

10. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has assured that if the allegations were proved Mr. Dissanayake would be removed from the Cabinet of Ministers forthwith.

11. The law presumes a person innocent until proven guilty. However her Excellency emphasises that the executive powers vested in her would not be exercised in a manner which could cause a travesty of justice or hamper the investigation of a fraud. 

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