Parliament watchdog committee COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) has discovered that Elakaduwa Plantations Ltd, a state-owned enterprise, had spent Rs 27.4 million as litigation costs to recover the value of two kilos of stolen pepper worth Rs 800, parliament sources said on Friday.

This was revealed during a recent COPE investigation on Elakaduwa Plantations, parliamentary sources said.

Questioned about this staggering loss of public funds, Elkaduwa officials present at the probe admitted that Rs 27.4 million had been spent on a case against two employees who had stolen two kilos of pepper.

They said the case had been instituted in 2014 and the incumbent officials were not responsible for the decision to go before courts to recover Rs 800.

COPE was of the view that necessary action should be taken against those responsible for filing this case.

The COPE Chairman said that officials including the Board of Directors during this period would be summoned before the committee in the near future.

State Ministers Shantha Bandara, Indika Anuruddha and MPs Eran Wickramaratne, SM Marikkar, Sanjeeva Edirimanna, Jagath Kumara Sumitraarachchi, M. Rameswaran, Sudarshan Denipitiya and Madhura Withanage participated in this committee meeting chaired by Prof Ranjith Bandara.