Refuting claims of wasting public money, the Chairman of the Delimitation Committee clarified that their expenses were way less than what was originally allocated for their mandated task - demarcation of electorates for the Provincial Council elections.
Chairman Dr K. Thavalingam said the ‘fat’ figures given wide publicity by the Opposition included the salaries of the regular staff of the Delimitation Commission who assisted with the administrative, technical and secretarial work for the Committee.
“The estimate for the four month Delimitation Committee work was Rs 21.2 million. We sent our request to Parliament and got the approval,” He said.
The Treasury had agreed to provide this amount to the Delimitation Committee. Thus, the funds were released by the Treasury through the account of the Delimitation Commission from time to time.
According to the Chairman out of Rs. 21.2 million, the Delimitation Committee has received only Rs. 10.75 million. In addition to that the Committee has spent Rs 5.42 million from the allocations to the Delimitation Commission. Hence the total expenditure will be Rs. 16.17 Million.
Of that Rs 16.17 million included salary and other payments of regular staff attached to Delimitation Commission and another Rs 3.3 million to Government Press for printing reports. (MF)