Spending 640,000 rupees for a chair is not a big deal: WPC Chief Minister

Aug 14, 2018 (LBO) – Chief Minister Isura Devapriya says that it is not a big deal to spend 640,000 rupees for a chair in the Western Provincial Council as the council is rich with money. Addressing a gathering Chief Minister said that their newly built provincial council building is a 15-storey building with modern facilities which will also require modern chairs. “What we have ordered is a chair same as the one used in the Parliament. So, the price is for such a chair,” Devapriya said. Devapriya was appointed to that position from Sri Lanka Freedom Party on 8 September 2015, following the election of his predecessor, Prasanna Ranatunga, to Parliament. “We can’t buy chairs for the council ever and anon. We have to buy these at once. But we have followed the correct tender procedure to import these chairs.” In 2016, 843,913 people were in poverty in Sri Lanka and over 101,342 people represented the Western Province contributing 12 percent to the total poverty. Devapriya, however, said the decision to import these chairs was taken at a working committee meeting of the Western Provincial Council. JVP Council member Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi who revealed this issue of importing more than a hundred chairs for the Council is also a member of the working committee. The working committee of the council has also proposed to make a more expensive but unique chair & a table for the Chairman and even a field visit have been proposed to see the work in progress. Western Province Governor Hemakumara Nanayakkara has suspended the move but the Chief Minister says need to go ahead with the purchase. It is disappointing to see politicians feed their fancy lifestyles wasting hard earned money of the taxpaying public.