A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Back to 500BC.
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Question AG on missing file
Faced with the prospect of some government members also backing the
Joint Opposition’s motion of no confidence against him, Ravi
Karunanayake is apparently left with no alternative but to step down as
Foreign Minister of his own volition pending investigations into the
questionable penthouse deal. However, those who are out for
Karunanayake’s blood, trying to blame the bond scams solely on him are
barking up the wrong tree. An attempt is obviously being made in some
quarters to throw him to the wolves.
No probe into the bond scams is complete without an investigation into
an Attorney General’s Department file which has been either shelved or
made to disappear. On June 30, 2015, the CID handed over a file (No:
C/187/161/2015) on the first bond scam to the AG’s Department. The
Attorney General at that time was Yuwanjana Wijethilake. The senior
official who accepted the file found a prima facie case of insider
trading and market manipulation and duly opened a criminal file and
handed it over to a senior counsel for further action. The government
dissolved Parliament and held the August 2015 general election,
thwarting an attempt by the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises)
headed by D. E. W. Gunasekera to place its report before Parliament.
Strangely, criminal action against the bond racketeers was terminated
and the file turned into a confidential document (CF/08/2015) and passed
on to another senior counsel. In June 2016, the counsel, acting within
the parameters set by his superiors, recommended that civil action be
taken against Perpetual Treasuries to recover funds. The file has not
been sighted ever since. Wijethilake is now in retirement.
The incumbent Attorney General must be summoned before the bond probe
and asked to explain why criminal action anent the bond scam was
terminated in a dubious manner.
Similarly, President Maithripala Sirisena should explain why he
dissolved Parliament without allowing the report prepared by the COPE
headed by DEW on the first bond scam to be presented to the House. Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been in charge of the Central
Bank since 2015, should explain why he sought to make light of the bond
scams in Parliament and strove to reappoint Arjuna Mahendran as the
Central Bank Governor in spite of irrefutable evidence that there had
been a bond racket.
It must also be found out who pressured the Central Bank to withdraw its
report which effectively countered the UNP’s footnotes in the report
put out by the COPE headed by Sunil Handunnetti. The ongoing bond probe
commission has refused to accept the well-argued document on the grounds
that it was withdrawn by the Central Bank.
Karunanayake may be removed from the Cabinet, prosecuted and even thrown
behind bars if found guilty. But, there are several others who need to
be questioned if the bond probe is to be considered complete. No one
should be considered too powerful to be brought before the bond
commission and questioned. After all, the present yahapalana government
came to power, promising accountability, equality before the law, an
immediate end to the culture of legal immunity and impunity among other
things.
If President Sirisena had refrained from playing politics with the bond
probe in 2015 and ensured that the AG’s Department took action, the bond
racketeers would have been behind bars and the losses the state and the
EPF suffered at their hands recovered by now and the second bond scam
(2016) could have been avoided.
The only way President Sirisena can prevent his name from being sullied
is to ensure that all those responsible for the bond scams including the
masterminds in high positions are brought to justice and the staggering
losses they have caused to the state coffers and workers’
superannuation fund recovered. Better late than never!