According to the National Audit Office, the amount of 10,677 million rupees that had been spent on this project has been wasted due to the suspension of the light rail project based on a policy decision of the government.
This project was started according to a loan agreement with the Japan-International Cooperation Agency. On June 28, 2022, a Cabinet paper was also submitted to the Cabinet regarding the compensation to JICA and OCGJV for the loss caused due to the stoppage of this project.
This project was implemented by the Ministry of Metropolitan and Western Development at that time and the total estimated cost of the project is 4381 million rupees. The loan amount obtained for the project is 4,886 million rupees.
Also, the audit revealed that an amount of 6,296 million rupees had been spent in excess of the total estimated cost of this project.
The loan period of this project was 40 years including a grace period of 12 years, and the Government of Sri Lanka had agreed to pay the loan in two installments according to the loan agreement. The audit also revealed that the interest value was added to the loan amount once every six months.
An amount of Rupees four hundred and ninety four crores one hundred seventy four thousand three hundred twenty one (4,940,174,321) had been spent as consultancy fees for this project.
The amount spent in terms of employee salaries is nineteen crores, sixty seven lakhs, three thousand two hundred and one and one rupee. (196,703,291)
The government had decided to stop this project on August 15, 2022. It was planned to be implemented from Malabe to Colombo Fort as the first step in starting the light rail transit project in Sri Lanka.
The project was supposed to start in 2019 and be completed in 2026.