The Treasury of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) has initiated a programme to recover Rs. 6.2 billion in arrears owed to the council for 2022, The Daily Morning learns.
The massive sum of arrears that the CMC had failed to recover was recently revealed at a meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (COPA).
When contacted by The Daily Morning yesterday (11), a CMC Treasury spokesperson said that the programme was being implemented by the CMC Treasury officials under the supervision of the Chief Treasurer of the CMC with assistance from the Auditor General’s Department.
However, the spokesperson would not discuss the details of the programme, stressing that it would be premature to disclose the manner of implementation of the proposed mechanism to recover arrears, given that it was still being drafted.
The spokesperson shared expectations that the process of recovering the arrears would be completed by the end of this year and that legal action would be taken against residents who had not paid taxes.
When the COPA was convened on 6 June under the Chairmanship of State Minister Lasantha Alagiyawanna to examine the Auditor General’s reports and the current performance of the Colombo Municipal Council for the years 2020/2021, it was disclosed that the CMC’s total outstanding income was Rs. 5.836 billion for 2021 , Rs. 5,386 billion for 2020, and Rs. 4.482 billion for 2019. These outstanding amounts primarily consisted of assessment tax, rent, and other taxes owed to the CMC.
Accordingly, the officials who were present at the COPA meeting pointed out that they were working to acquire the properties which owed the CMC outstanding taxes. Further, challenges in identifying the owners of certain properties and the difficulties faced by the council to piece together clear timelines following the passing of council officials who had a long history managing such matters had hampered the CMC’s ability to recover arrears, COPA was told.
The members of the committee who were present called for an assessment of the approvals in order to uncover how certain unauthorised constructions had taken place within council limits. Thus, the committee recommended that a programme with dates be prepared by 6 July to recover this money and that a full report be submitted to COPA.
Further, it was revealed that the private entities contracted to collect the parking fees had continued to default on the monthly rent due to the municipality and as of 31 December 2021, the arrears to be collected from 38 entities had amounted to Rs. 265 million.