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President’s Office agrees to reveal vehicle details after RTI appeal
View(s):The Presidential Secretariat this week agreed before the Right to Information Commission to release information regarding the allocation of state-owned vehicles to its staff.
The information required to be released includes the name and designation of officials using them as well as the make, model and vehicle numbers.
The Secretariat had previously refused to release the information which was sought in July last year through an application filed under the Right to Information Act by journalist Rahul Samantha Hettiarachchi.
It cited Section 5 (1)(a) (‘personal information’).
The request had also asked for details on the staff of the ninth Executive President of Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, including salaries and other allowances. After an initial refusal, that information was released in December last year following appeal hearings before the Commission.
In a connected appeal, the RTI Commission directed the Presidential Secretariat to release details relating to the registration numbers and reassignments of vehicles to ministries and other state entities after the vehicles were returned on or about September 23, 2024, following the ending of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s term of office.
Evaluating the refusal to disclose the details, the Commission ruled that details on state vehicle allocations cannot be withheld as personal information, ordering the release by 31.01.2026. The Commission observed that it “recognised that Sri Lankan citizens have the right to know to which state institutions each vehicle belonging to the State—particularly a fleet that has attracted significant public attention—has been allocated,” pointing to the public interest in Section 5(4) of the RTI Act.
Also on Thursday, the RTI Commission reversed the decision of the Ministry of External Resources to refuse releasing a 2017 agreement on the Katana Water Project funded through a 54.8 million loan by the China Development Bank (CDB) given to the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. This was one of several loan agreements requested by researcher Dr M. Sarvananthan, all of which had been released by the ministry during the appeal hearings, with the Katana Water Supply Project only remaining to be released.
The project had been hailed as a landmark effort to secure clean water to chronic kidney disease-prone areas in the Gampaha District. The Ministry had refused disclosure of the agreement on the basis that this constituted ‘affected debt’ in terms of the comprehensive external debt restructuring process following the economic crisis of 2022.
The Ministry argued that premature disclosure could undermine negotiations with official bilateral and commercial creditors and stated that the other agreements had been released due to the completion of negotiations.
The Commission, however, pointed to the fact that what is being requested is not the revised agreement currently being negotiated in the debt restructuring process but the initial agreement in 2017. It was observed that the Government of Sri Lanka had, in principle, completed the debt restructuring process and that the argument relating to debt comparability loses force given that this is the one agreement yet to be released.
The Commission said that it is “firmly of the opinion that the information requested in this appeal falls within the scope and meaning of a ‘right’ secured by Article 14A of the Constitution; namely, that it is ‘information that is required for the exercise or protection of a citizen’s right.’ The release of this information would enable examination of the manner in which monies lent for this purpose have been utilised and other relevant factors which have a direct link to the financial accountability of state entities.”
There is also no proper document before the Commission to show the denial of the 3rd party (CDB) to release the information due to the failure by the Ministry to follow the mandatory procedures of the RTI Act in that regard, it was noted. The Ministry was directed to release the information in issue on or before February 27, 2026.
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