New Central Bank Governor Gets official appointment from Prez today
Posted on July 4th, 2016
Sri Lanka news
President Maithripala Sirisena announced on Saturday that he will appoint Economist Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy as the Governor of Central Bank. Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy will receive his appointment as the Governor of Central Bank from President Maithripala Sirisena today (4).
Dr. Coomaraswamy had met the President on Saturday (2) after his decision was announced on the next CBSL Governor.
This appointment had ended the controversial rift between the President and Premier on a suitable person taking over the heart of the finances in the country.
Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy
Indrajit Coomaraswamy – born April 3, 1950 – is a Sri Lankan economist, hails from one of the country’s most respected Tamil families. He is the son of the iconic diplomat, Raju Coomaraswamy, alias ‘ Roving Raju’, and a brother of Radhika Coomaraswamy, a human rights activists who is also a member of Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Council..
Educated at the Royal College, Colombo and at Harrow School in England, he gained his undergraduate degree at Cambridge University and obtained his Doctorate at the University of Sussex.
Joining the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in 1973 he served in the Economic Research, Statistics and Bank Supervision Divisions as a staff officer till 1989. From 1981 to 1989 he was seconded to the Ministry of Finance and Planning.
Thereafter Coomaraswamy worked for the Commonwealth Secretariat from 1990–2008, holding the posts of Director, Economic Affairs Division and Deputy-Director, Secretary-General’s Office and was brought back to the Commonwealth Secretariat to head the Social Transformation Programme Division, as Interim Director.
Indrajit played first-class cricket in 1971 and 1972 for the Cambridge University team. He also played Rugby for Cambridge University, and later captained Sri Lanka in Rugby in the 1974 Asiad.
He also served as a special adviser to the Galleon group, founded by controversial businessman Raj Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan American currently serving a 11 year prison term. Rajaratnam has been convicted in the USA on nine counts of securities fraud and five counts of conspiracy. Prosecutors have said he made up to $63.8 million in illicit profit from 2003 to 2009.
Incumbent Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake was once accused of depositing funds sent by convicted hedge fund owner Raj Rajaratnam, in a private bank without informing the Central Bank. Karunanayake’s name, however, has been cleared by the Colombo High Court which heard the case for nearly four years.
The Galleon Group.
The Galleon Group was one of the largest hedge fund management firms in the world, managing over $7 billion, before closing in October 2009.The firm was the center of a 2009 insider trading scandal. The firm was founded by Raj Rajaratnam, a former equity research analyst and eventual president of Needham & Company, in 1997.The New York headquartered firm was named for the galleon, a large sailing ship used from the 16th to 18th centuries in Europe.
Insider trading investigation of Galleon
In October 2009 Rajaratnam and five others were arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud and insider trading. Rajaratnam pleaded not guilty and remained free on $100 million bail, the largest in United States history. He was indicted by a grand jury in December 2009[5] and found guilty in U.S. District Court on 14 charges in May 2011. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell to 11 years in prison on October 13, 2011.
Other former and current traders at Galleon were subsequently arrested and charged with contributing to the alleged conspiracy. Several former employees of the firm have cooperated in the investigation. As of January 2012 over fifty people have been convicted or pleaded guilty to date in the sprawling probe stemming from Galleon (not all of them Galleon employees).
Zvi Goffer, an ex-Galleon Group LLC trader, was found guilty of all 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud against him and sentenced by Judge Sullivan “to 10 years in prison for his role in a scheme to trade on inside information provided by lawyers”. Goffer had asked for a lenient sentence and prosecutors had recommended more than 10 years.
Adam Smith, an ex-Galleon Group LLC trader, pleaded guilty and cooperated in the criminal trial of Raj Rajaratnam. He was sentenced in June 2012 to only a period of probation and no jail time by Judge Jed Rakoff, who took over the case from Judge Richard Holwell when the latter retired from the bench. (Wikipedia)
July 3rd, 2016 at 5:44 pm
Ranil W has his way all the time. Now he has appointed someone who may be worse than Arjun Mahendran. According to the Asian Mirror Coomaraswamy also served as a special advisor to the Galleon group, founded by controversial businessman Raj Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan American currently serving a 11 year prison term.
Indrajit Coomaraswamy is the brother of Radhika Coomaraswamy. She was a fanatic Eelamist and while she was working at the UN did her best to make UN declare R2P and invade Sri Lanka on the pretext of protecting the Tamils.
For her efforts to destroy the Sinhala Buddhists she was given a Deshamanya award by the man who sits in the President’s chair now. I can think of hundreds of others who deserve that Honor much more who would be willing to lay down their life for Sri Lanka. She should have been given the “Deshadhrohi” award.
She complained bitterly about how badly the Tamils were treated by the Sinhalese without mentioning that her father Raju Coomaraswamy was a Sri Lankan civil servant and a UN administrator. He was an old boy of Royal like Indrajit and got his free education like most Tamils and was appointed by J.R. Jayawardena as UN Ambassador. As a family they lived in Colombo 7 in the lap of luxury. It is the same as Vigneswaran who got his free education, married his sons to Sinhala women, lived in Colombo 7, was a supreme court judge and yet now he sends resolutions UN about Genocide of Tamils by Sinhalese. Is there a limit to the deceit of Tamil people?
Radhika Coomaraswamy was the Under secretary of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April ’06. In her position she could have done a lot to bring the use of child soldiers by the LTTE to the attention of UN and exerted pressure on LTTE to desist. She did not. Sri Lanka Govt in return for all her traitorous acts has now appointed her to the Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka) as a civil representative on September 10th, 2015. This is how stupid our current Govt is and so are the Sinhalese who voted this lot into power.
She was board member of ICES Sri Lanka and the entire directorate of this group is now under investigation for fraud. Also Indrajit Coomaraswamy was a Director of this group till 2015.
In addition Radhika was under investigation for conflict of interest by playing a dual role as Under-Secretary General and board member of the ICES after assuring the UN that she has given up her positions in Sri Lanka;
Our people are trusting, good hearted idiots and should be given a medal for being the STUPIDEST people on earth.
July 3rd, 2016 at 8:31 pm
AMAZING how one non-citizen Tamil hora who insider-traded us out of $2 billion USD in bonds while being Central Bank Governor, is replaced by another Tamil with connections to Raj Rajaratnam currently exquisitely clad in a striped suit and is serving time in federal prison as a guest of the US government for … you guessed it … insider trading!
The principle seems …. you see…. is to replace one insider-trader with another insider-trader. No wonder they say birds of a feather fuck together! Ooops … excuse me sirs … I meant “flock” of course!
All this is happening while bypassing a perfectly qualified candidate, the current Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, a long time public servant without any allegations of misconduct in office, just because he is apparently a holdover from the previous GoSL and presumed by virtue of his longevity to be a Rajapaksa loyalist! Perhaps he is disqualified because he is a Sinhala man!
Is it not TRULY AMAZING how we Sinhala Buddhists have fallen from grace in our own Motherland?
In the words of our seriously flawed esteemed President Palwatte Gamaralage Maitripala Yapa Sirisena, we SINHALESE are no longer SUDUSU people, while those from minority communities …. even non-citizens … are MORE SUDUSU to govern us than we are!
The last time we became SUDUSU-NATHI PEOPLE like this was two centuries ago in March, 1815, when another TREACHEROUS GREEDY CABAL of our esteemed gamaralas handed over our Motherland to the British colonialists!
Aiyoooo …. Sirisenaaaa!