Minister orders probe into Youth Corps activities

Uditha KUMARASINGHE

COLOMBO: Youth Affairs Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi has ordered an inquiry into activities of Youth Corps since there was no clear document on programmes conducted by the Youth Corps during the UNP rule.

According to the Minister, no audit inquiry had been conducted on programmes conducted by the Youth Corps.

Employees had been recruited to the Youth Corps through a private company. There had also been no responsible officer from the Ministry or Treasury assigned to the Youth Corps Council, the Minister said. Wanniarachichi also expressed her dissatisfaction on the procedure followed to recruit employees to the Youth Corps.

“There are no clear documents on Youth Corps programmes conducted during the past few years,” she said.

The Minister had discussions with Youth Corps headquarters officials on February 27 to review the Youth Corps programme’s progress. “It was revealed at this discussion that there had been no documents with regard to vesting of lands and buildings or the construction of new buildings for Youth Corps. In addition, not even a single document on the work carried out at the beginning of Youth Corps is available,” the Minister said.

Wanniarachchi instructed Ministry Secretary S. Virithamulla to conduct a full scale inquiry on all activities conducted by Youth Corps.

All documents outlining Youth Corps programmes have only been printed in English. The Minister instructed to print all documents of the Youth Corps programmes in Sinhala and Tamil in the future.

The Minister also instructed the Youth Corps to formulate a syllabus which will guide youth to a vocation.