Rs 1000 M paid to misplace National Drug Policy
President Maithripala Sirisena revealed that a powerful politician of the previous regime had taken a bribe of Rs 1 billion to misplace the drafted bill pertaining to national drug policy.
It was also the first time Sirisena addressed the House after becoming the President.
Addressing Parliament at the commencement of second reading stage debate on National Medicines Regulatory Authority Bill, the President said that 400 pharmaceutical companies each paid Rs 2.5 million to make up the one billion rupee bribe.
President Sirisena said that a draft bill he had prepared when he was the Minister of Health had gone missing in 2011 with the blessings of higher-ups of the then regime.