RANJITH SOYSA

With the statements issued recently by ex solicitor general Dilrukshi Wickramasinghe and another former solicitor gen Suhada Gamlath, it is very clear that there had been a cabal of vicious Ministers , the supportive politicians and government servants working in hand and glove under Yahapalanya Plan who were involved in a political witch hunt throwing all government procedures etc overboard and causing massive financial expenditure to the state.

With the formation of Yahapalanaya government in 2015, an advisory committee was appointed to plan and implement a program of its activities. The committee included Ranil, Chandrika, Champika, Rajitha, Anura Kumar, Sumanthrian and Hakeem which was known as National Executive Committee, One of the first decision made by the committee is to plan a strategy to punish all who belonged to to the opposition Camp by investigating their acts of corruption and misdemeanours. To enable the committee to enlist the support of the NGOs etc another committee was appointed which came to be known as ‘Anti-corruption committee secretariat’. The person who headed the committee was Ananda Wijepala who was Anura Kumara’s personal secretary when he was the Minister of Agriculture. The fact that its office was situated in the Temple Trees complex speaks of the important role assigned to it.

It was so powerful that the ministers who were members were working round the clock in submitting petitions to the Bribery commission and also to the CID. It was instrumental in the looking into the alleged misuse of government funds and submitted reports to the organizations which were examining Financial Frauds. Some of the members were seen carrying these files themselves and lodging complaints and issuing public threats to the persons alleged to have committed the misdeeds and the official in these organizations and especially the law enforcing authorities in the Police department and the Attorney General’s Department. They were successful in forming a supportive unit in the CID which worked tirelessly to nab the political opponents of the Government, Unfortunately, there were loop holes in the fabricated cases and they were to a large extent failed in the pursuits for last 5 years!.

But, about a month ago the revelations by Dilrukshi Wickramasinghe, the then Solicitor General and the former Bribery Commissioner that she regretted the unjust actions taken by herself with regard to the destructions of Avant Grade Co and its executives due to nasty politicians, hit the nail on the head of these questionable operations as it came to the public eye that there ‘were ministers and the politicians’ who were controlling the implementation of the law which is a judicial function. Avant Garde was a high profit earning venture which crated job opportunities for nearly 1500 persons and adding 16.4 dollar billions to Sri Lankan economy from 2011 and 2015. As one of the very first unlawful political operations conducted by the Yahapalanya government to achieve a personal vendetta ,it resulted in a colossal  loss to the country as well to the employees of Avant Garde, This issue must be taken up by a responsible government to recover the losses while punishing the guilty who were playing a political game using the country’s resources and it’s time. It has to be mentioned that many Government personnel were compelled to spend time in implementing their vicious plan of political revenge.

To add insult to the injury another former Solicitor General, Shuada Gamlath and presently the Chairman of NAPVW dropped another bombshell by end September when he revealed the names of prominent activist Ministers and a former high  official of Bar Association  who were involved in pressurizing Mr Gamalth to take illegal  steps to arrest illegally, Gotabaya Rajapakse and several others in connection with  Avant Garde issue which he resisted, and, resulted in him not receiving the due promotion as the Attorney General,

The above serious comments made by two former Solicitor Generals on the undue and unethical interference in the law enforcing situations have to treated with the seriousness which it deserves to be probed further to seek compensation from the irresponsible individuals for wasting public funds and their attempts to ride the donkey.

RANJITH SOYSA