Sri Lanka’s embassy in the United States spent Foreign Ministry funds on steaks, cognac and pornography stated Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, in a startling revelation to parliament on Friday.
Mr Samaraweera stated that staff at the embassy had "adult films, $200 shots of cognac and $288 steaks” under the previous government.
“Millions of rupees were wasted, mainly through the Foreign Minister’s vote on extravagances,” he added.
The foreign minister went on to state over 330,000 US dollars went missing in one property transaction, undertaken by the embassy.
Speaking during the budget allocation in parliament on Friday, Mr Samaraweera also criticised the spending of over Rs. 339 million were spent on five lobbying firms between 2009 and 2014 as having produced no positive results for Sri Lanka in international diplomacy.
Foreign Policy reported earlier this year that Sri Lanka paid an estimated US $6.5 million to a major fundraiser to the Obama campaign in order to lobby US officials and is yet to finish making payments.
See our earlier post:
Sri Lanka paid $6.5 million to Washington lobby firms in 2014 (29 Aug 2015)
Also see:
Sri Lanka hires another American lobbying firm (24 Oct 2014)
US lobby firm needed to combat ‘Tamil diaspora and international media’ says Central Bank(25 Aug 2014)
Sri Lanka signs deal with US lobbying firm (18 Aug 2014)
Central Bank of Sri Lanka hires US lobby firm (18 August 2014)
Govt spends over $100m on US lobby firms (28 July 2014)
SL spends over US $100,000 a month lobbying the US (26 January 2014)
SL Washington embassy hires firms to lobby US govt (15 April 2013)
British PR firm wrote Rajapaksa's UN speech (05 December 2011)