COLOMBO: The World Food Program is being investigated in Sri Lanka for gifting luxury duty-free vehicles to a charity headed by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wife, officials said Tuesday.

Police said an investigation into an accident involving a sports utility vehicle revealed that it was one of two SUVs to be given as a “donation” by the UN agency to Shiranthi Rajapaksa’s Siriliya Saviya Foundation and that neither party had paid import taxes which can be up to 350 percent.

A fleet of four-wheel drive vehicles was imported by various UN agencies in early 2005 to carry out relief and reconstruction after the December 2004 Asian tsunami which claimed at least 31,000 lives in Sri Lanka.

There was no comment from the WFP office in Colombo, but the agency’s regional bureau in Bangkok said the agency had followed “standard WFP protocols and procedures” in donating the vehicles.