The parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has flagged alleged land fraud inside the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA), with details set to be referred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).
COPE Chairman Dr Nishantha Samaraweera said the irregularities include the operation of a Carlton preschool at a section of the Maligawatte housing complex since 1999, at a rate well below the officially assessed value of the land.
Dr Samaraweera said the facts uncovered by the committee will be passed to the CID and CIABOC for further investigation. He did not name individuals or disclose the cumulative monetary loss to the NHDA from the arrangement.
The Maligawatte finding adds to a widening trail of NHDA governance issues already in the public domain. Cabinet earlier this month approved a five-member expert committee to fix stalled 2015–2019 NHDA projects, with Rs. 11.26 billion still required to complete a backlog of 2,562 housing units of which only 386 have been finished.
The referral is the latest in a sequence of COPE-driven accountability moves this month. The committee earlier ordered a broad overhaul of internal audits across some 300 state-owned enterprises and pressed the Auditor-General over alleged coal-import irregularities.
