COPA to probe Kollupitiya Supermarket land deal in coming days

By Yohan Perera   

Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) is expected to probe the alleged fraudulent land deal behind the Kollupitiya Supermarket soon, Daily Mirror reliably learnt yesterday.   

Former Member of Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) Shermila Gonawala told Daily Mirror that this deal which is mischievous might be taken up by COPA soon.   

Ms. Gonawala in a letter addressed to Auditor General W. P. C. Wickramaratne said that the Urban Development Authority (UDA) and CMC had sold the land where the Kollupitiya Supermarket is located in the guise of giving it over on a 99 year lease.” This was done few years ago. However, the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was not aware of the move. He got to know about it only after I briefed him about it,” Ms. Gonawala told Daily Mirror.   

Ms. Gonawala in her letter to the Auditor General has said there was evidence to prove that the CMC had prior warnings on the collapse of Meetotamulla garbage mountain.” A top academic personality attached to Peradeniya University had given the warning to CMC in 2016. It collapsed in 2018,” Ms. Gonawala had recalled in her letter addressed to the Auditor General.   

Another disclosure made by Ms. Gonawala is the failure of CMC to acquire a land at Devanampiyatissa Mawatha in Colombo despite the owner having defaulted payment of rates for years.   

“I will be talking to the Auditor General and COPA heads about this misdealing and see that the committee undertakes probes on these serious matters. I have been made to understand that COPA is to meet in few days time,” Ms. Gonawala said.