6 August 2018 05:22 pm
He said the minister had never spoken to him on the matter of scholarships though he claimed to have done so.
“Politicians including former president Mahinda Rajapaksa may have sent letters, but scholarships were never provided on those letters,” he told Daily Mirror.
However, Dr. Fernando admitted that Rs.400 million worth of scholarships were given by SAITM as stated by the minister was correct but they were never politically motivated.
“The scholarships were given only to deserving students; those who had very good marks but could not enter the university because of economic issues," he said.
Dr. Fernando said lots of MPs including JO MP Dinesh Gunawardenamade made the same mistake when they claimed that SAITM scholarships were granted on political grounds but those were baseless allegations.
He said the minister was attempting to level these allegation because they were in trouble with the scholarship issue.
Dr. Fernando said he had to pay some Rs.3.5 billion to the bank and he was unable to pay the money because SAITM assets could not be sold without the approval of the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka.
“BOI projects cannot be acquired or nationalized. But this Government brought a special gazette notice and abolished SAITM by saying it was not up to standard. I’m in trouble because of that. I have to pay the bank Rs 3.5 billion. The bank is demanding the money. There are parties prepared to buy SAITM and they like to pay the money in advance but the bank wants the full amount in one go," he said. "One person can’t buy both the Dr. Neville Fernando Teaching Hospital (NFTH) and SAITM. So, |I have to sell them separately. This takes a longer period because the buyer has to obtain Cabinet approval.” (Thilanka Kanakarathna)