By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy The Island

The 16 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs who left the government will file a Right To Information (RTI) application next week to obtain the full report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on the bond scam which contains the names of 118 MPs who had taken money from the Perpetual Treasuries, MP Dayasiri Jayasekara said yesterday.

“The United National Party (UNP) is attempting to tarnish my reputation saying I got a cheque from Arjun Aloysius. But everyone knows that I have campaigned against him and lobbied to punish him over the bond scam. What would be more interesting is to find out MPs who got money from Aloysius while they were MPs and were in the Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE),” he said.

The PCoI report was publicized by the President’s Office earlier this year but several hundred pages of the report were withheld. Jayasekara added that those withheld pages contained the names of MPs who received donations amounting to Rs 1.3 billion from Aloysius.

“The President’s Secretary should release the full document. A lot of people are asking me to reveal the names of the MPs who got money. The best thing is to release the full PCoI report,” he said.

The SLFP rebel 16 have all signed the COPE report on the bond scam, Jayasekara said adding that Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake who was leading the campaign to tarnish his reputation, did not sign the COPE report.

“All the UNP MPs signed a COPE report with footnotes. Is Ramanayake seriously suggesting that he does not receive donations for election campaigns? Did he spend his own money when he contested for the Sabaragamuwa provincial council election? This is a man who didn’t want to sign the COPE report implicating Perpetual Treasuries. Unlike these actors who wear wigs, we have always been straight forward,” the SLFP MP said.