Newly appointed Director General of the President’s Media Division Dr. Najith Indika yesterday said that many of the vehicles belonging to the Presidential Secretariat had been returned by those who used them before the recently concluded presidential election. Due to insufficient parking space at the Presidential Secretariat, those vehicles had been parked along the road near Galle Face Green, Dr.
Indika said in response to our query why a large number of state vehicles had been parked near Galle Face and near Sri Lanka Foundation. “We are currently examining the relevant details pertaining to those vehicles and will issue an official statement in a day or two. We are in the process of receiving more vehicles,” Dr.
Indika said. However, he did not say whether all the vehicles being displayed to the public belonged to the Presidential Secretariat and had been misused under previous governments. Some state officials, asked for comment on Dr.
Indika’s claim, said many of those vehicles belonged to different ministries and other state outfits, and when those who had used them lawfully tried to return them to the institutions which they had worked for, after the government change, they had been asked to take the vehicles to the Presidential Secretariat, where they were instructed to park them either near Galle Face Green or Sri Lanka Foundation. All our efforts to ascertain the government’s response to the aforesaid claim were in vain as Dr. Indika did not answer his ph.