Auditor General to meet COPE reps on June 29

By Kishani Samaraweera

The Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE), the parliamentary watchdog, has completed investigations into 35 state-owned enterprises and would table findings at the next parliamentary session of twenty of these enterprises, Chairman of COPE Sunil Handunnetti told the Sunday Observer.

 Referring to the COPE report on the controversial Treasury Bond issue, he said the Auditor General had completed his side of the investigation and would meet representatives of COPE on June 29. “Thereafter the committee will take a final decision on the issue,” he said.

“We have finished our investigations into 35 public enterprises. Reports of the investigations will be presented to Parliament,” he said adding that the rest of the reports will be finalized and submitted soon.

“We cannot specify a date when reports will be presented to Parliament since it depends on the agenda. However, we intend to present the Committee’s findings as soon as possible.” He also said COPE will investigate another 427 government institutions in the near future.

Handunneti declined to detail whether there were serious allegations included in the committee reports which are now completed. Meanwhile, Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran announced that he would not seek an extension of his term in office which ends this month until the COPE report clears his him.