By Sarah Hannan The appointment of Nissanka Nanayakkara to the position of Chairman at People’s Bank, whilst holding the post of Chairman at Litro Gas Lanka, fuelled a conversation around the possible board issues that were allegedly taking place at Litro. Further concerns were raised with propaganda plastered on the streets of Colombo last week questioning the appointment of Murugesh Devanayagam to its board. Devanayagam was the local agent for Oman Trading International (OTI), the current LP Gas supplier for Litro Gas Lanka, as claimed by company officials. The issue was raised with Ministry of Finance reconstituting the state-owned company’s board of directors with the reinstatement of the UNF Government in December 2018. Amidst the above issue, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera announced the appointment of Johann Wijesinghe to the post of Chairman of Litro Gas with effect from 26 February 2019. With the standing board members refusing to step down, Wijesinghe was unable to assume duties in his new role. When contacted by The Sunday Morning,Nanayakkara stated: “There had been a misunderstanding at the time. I can assure you that the allegation made against our board is baseless and the person that they were referring to does not work for OTI anymore. With that, there will be no conflict of interest as speculated.” Attempts made to contact the Minister for comment was unsuccessful at the time the newspaper went to print. Nanayakkara will continue to hold the post of Chairman in both state-owned institutes with the status on Wijesinghe’s appointment remaining unclear. Nanayakkara further noted that, with the assumed conflict of interest cleared, the Minister had issued a directive to suspend the recent appointments to the board.