• Says awaiting Govt. response on request to rent shop spaces 

The Dambulla Economic Centre Traders Organisation denied allegations made by Trade Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe that shop spaces in the Centre have been sold, calling the said claim baseless.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, the Organisation’s President, C.A. Siriwardhane said that no sale of a space within the Centre or a shop within the Centre has taken place, and that changing the name of a shop in the 'Management Trust' of the Centre is required for such a sale, which has not occurred. "For a shop to be sold, the name of the shop in the ‘Management Trust’ should be changed, and no such event has happened, and the Organisation has not been informed about any such event," Siriwardhane said.

He further said that it is baseless to say that two spaces were sold as there is no value for the spaces in the market but only concerning the name that the particular shop has built.

Siriwardhane added that traders who bought shops in 1999 have signed an affidavit not to conduct business elsewhere, and that many had given up the ownership of other properties they had absolute ownership over in order to join the Centre. According to him, citing this situation, the Organisation has requested the Trade Ministry to allow renting out shops to third parties if the owners are unable to operate due to illness or age. The Ministry has not provided a response yet. 

These concerns come on the grounds that, on 19 February, Samarasinghe said in the Parliament that two shop spaces of the said Centre had been sold by the traders who had rented them. He elaborated on the fact that it is illegal to sell shop spaces as the Centre is owned by the Government.