We paid for Basil’s guests, says SLPP, but how much?

Mystery over whether BIA’s VIP Lounge bill has been fully paid

A day after the Civil Aviation Authority denied it had paid the breakfast buffet bill for Basil Rajapaksa’s hundred-odd guests at the airport’s Gold Service VIP Lounge, the SLPP secretary stepped in to douse public ire by claiming Basil’s supporters had paid the bill.

At a press conference on Monday, SLPP secretary Sagara Kariyawasam MP said: “Basil Rajapaksa and wife have paid USD 200 each for the use of the VIP Lounge at the airport. Payments have also been paid for the refreshments provided to his visitors.”

Has it then? If so by whom? And how much? Even as Kariyawasam took pains to specify that Basil and wife had paid USD 200 each to enter the VIP lounge, he should specify the exact amount paid to the airport authority for use of this exclusive USD 200 per head VIP Lounge. Although the airport lounge maybe open to anyone who can afford the USD 200 cover charge, it’s not open to any common stray on the road to drop in for a free patty on the house.

As last week’s Sunday Punch said: “Basil and wife, duly paid USD 200 each to enter the lounge and enjoy the facilities offered. The fact that the USD200 entry ticket entitles only one person to partake the VIP fare, and does not permit one to invite guests, is evidenced by Basil forking out a further USD 200 for his wife’s ticket. As per the charges levied at Gold Route’s VIP lounge, the bill for hundred people at USD 200 per head should amount to USD 20,000 or Rs. 7,300,000’.

The simple question asked of Sagara Kariyawasam, who claims that the bill for guests, including MPs, has been paid, is: ‘Was the entire amount of Rs. 7.3m for guests settled in full?

Four similar questions are posed to Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva: “Was a sum of Rs. 7,300,000 or more in respect of the 100 odd guests who were at the airport’s VIP lounge on November 20 morning with Basil Rajapaksa and wife, received in full? If not, what are the steps taken to recover the said sum? If a lesser sum had been accepted as payment in full by any airport official, who authorised it? And what are the steps he will take against the authorising official to recover from him this loss of revenue to the State?” Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, instead of kick-starting an inquiry without any prodding, has kept silent on the issue, as if it’s none of his business. He should awake from his slumber and provide a detailed account of the airport’s VIP Lounge income on November 20.

Throughout the years, it is this same callous, casual attitude toward public money, embezzling from the public purse millions of rupees to pay for expensive ministerial whims, with public officials colluding in the coverup that has led, in no small a measure, to the decline and collapse of the Lankan economy.

Last week, the Sunday Times reported that the farewell party given to a retiring public official will no longer be paid for by the State. If the present austerity wave has dashed the traditional send-off to toast a public official’s lifetime of service, how manifestly unjust it will be if the state has paid in full or in part for American returnee Basil’s celebratory buffet for his guests at BIA’s VIP Lounge?

The Minister must put the record straight in Parliament and assure the nation that the state has not lost a dime due to the prodigal’s ostentatious return.

The SLPP Secretary, Sagara, merely telling the media, as if its truth sworn on the gospels, that Basil’s supporters had paid the bill, cannot be accepted at face value. Neither can his statement that, “as a political party we have never misused public property and we will never do so’, be accepted by any means when it was officially revealed by the President’s Office this week, how Mahinda had busted Rs.37 million of public money on two foreign jaunts with family.

No more pulling of wool over the people’s eyes. The Rajapaksa regimes’ corruption and squander have fleeced them enough.