SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa has escalated the row over Road Development Authority (RDA) payments, posting what he claims is a Bank of Ceylon “Recall of Funds” notice on X to contradict the government’s recent denials of duplicate payments.
In a post on April 27, Rajapaksa accused the administration of attempting to downplay the alleged irregularities. He said the BOC notice indicated that Rs. 263 million had been erroneously remitted to contractors due to a “system error,” and that over Rs. 51 million remained unaccounted for.
“While Deputy Minister Prasanna Gunasena calls allegations of duplicate RDA payments ‘baseless,’ official records tell a different story,” Rajapaksa said.
Deputy Minister of Transport and Highways Prasanna Gunasena had earlier rejected the duplicate-payment claim, prompting the RDA’s formal denial of the Rs. 380 million figure cited by SJB MP Nalin Bandara. Rajapaksa’s BOC document — if authentic — is the first piece of documentary evidence introduced into the dispute, raising it from a political war of statements to a documented financial query.
He also questioned how Minister Bimal Rathnayake could “justify this blatant denial in the face of such clear evidence” and linked the row to the USD 2.5 million Treasury email fraud, urging the government to accept responsibility instead of denying allegations across multiple cases.
The government has not publicly responded to the BOC notice or confirmed its authenticity. Bank of Ceylon, which is the issuer in the alleged document, has also not commented.
