End of “Good Governance in Sri Lanka” by the most corrupt PM in Asia – Must be removed to protect the democracy in Sri Lanka !!!
Posted on November 3rd, 2017
News Line: ‘Out comes the TAPES the PM must be CROSS EXAMINED’ – Wasantha Samarasinghe (02.11.2017)
PM required to testify before Bond Commission
Courtesy The Daily Mirror
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) investigating the controversial Issuance of Bonds today said it requires the testimony of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in order to “obtain a few clarifications and any other evidence which may be necessary”.
Issuing a statement at the commencement of the today’s session, the Commission noted that it had perused the affidavit given to the Commission by the Prime Minister and that the Commission had certain clarifications to be made.
“With regard to the questions forwarded to the Hon. Prime Minister by this Commission of Inquiry, we have received an affidavit affirmed to by the Prime Minister. The Commissioners have carefully perused this affidavit and we would like to obtain a few clarifications and any other evidence which may be necessary. Therefore, we will be requesting the Hon. Prime Minister to attend a Hearing of this Commission of Inquiry for that purpose” the statement said.
Accordingly, the Commission said that the date at which the Prime Minister would be required to attend the hearing would be notified in due course after ascertaining “with the Prime Ministers office the availability of the Hon. Prime Minister”
Submitting the affidavit, the Prime Minister earlier expressed his willingness to appear before the commission if necessary. The PCoI yesterday said the decision to summon the Prime Minister was made after thoroughly perusing the affidavit.
Although the statement issued earlier in the day said that the only other hearing would be for the purpose of the testimony of the Prime Minister, it was decided last evening that the Commission would conduct hearings on November 16.
The final report of the commission is due on December 8. In its statement the Commission said that it had to analyse lengthy testimonies of over 70 witnesses and over 450 documents are required prior to December 08, at which point the mandate of the Commission ends.
Full statement:
Statement made on November 2, 2017:
The Commission of Inquiry is holding this special Hearing today for the specific purpose of recording the evidence of a few more witnesses. This evidence has been obtained by the officers of the Hon.
Attorney General’s Department who are assisting this Commission of Inquiry. We have agreed with the submission made by the officers of the Hon. Attorney General’s Department, that this evidence may be relevant to our investigation and inquiry in terms of our mandate. That is why, despite the limited time available to us to prepare and finalize our report, we have decided to hold this special Hearing today.
With regard to the questions forwarded to the Hon. Prime Minister by this Commission of Inquiry, we have received an affidavit affirmed to by the Hon. Prime Minister. The Commissioners have carefully perused this affidavit and we would like to obtain a few clarifications and any other evidence which may be necessary. Therefore, we will be requesting the Hon. Prime Minister to attend a Hearing of this Commission of Inquiry for that purpose. The date on which that Hearing will be held, will be decided in due course and will be notified in the usual manner.
When deciding that date, we have to take in to account the fact that, Justice Jayawardena is recovering from surgery held on 17 October and finds it difficult to attend another Hearing for the next two weeks or so. Further, we think it appropriate to consult the Hon. Prime Minister office to ascertain the availability of the Hon. Prime Minister, when fixing the date of the Hearing.
Finally, at present, we are working very hard to prepare and finalize our report before our Mandate ends on
8 December, 2017
. As mentioned earlier, this complex task requires us to consider the evidence of over 70 witnesses, many of whom have given very lengthy testimonies and to analyse over 450 documents, many of which consist of a large number of pages. All this material has to be carefully read, understood and evaluated in order to make the findings and recommendations which are set out in the Mandate issued to us.(Shehan Chamika Silva)
News Line TV1 20th October 2017
Bond scandal: Rs.10 bln loss for next thirty years: Fmr. DG
Courtesy The Daily Mirror
According to the personal computation of retired Deputy Governor, W.A. Wijeywardena, who testified at the Presidential Commission today, the government’s long term loss for the next thirty years would be Rs.10 billion due to the failure of not meeting the appropriate terms in the process of issuing Treasury Bonds which took place on February 27, 2015.
His personal computation had also indicated that the immediate loss after the issuance of the bonds incurred Rs. 532 million to the government.
It was explained, that the February 2015 bond auction was originally intended to sell 1 billion rupees ($7 million) of 30 year bonds. Following the auction the Public Debt Department (PDD) had recommended to accept Rs. 2.6 billion amount of the bids.
However, disregarding the recommendation of PDD to accept only Rs. 2.6 billion, the Former Governor had unusually visited twice the PDD while the auction was taking place and had instructed to accept Rs. 10.058 billion amounts of bids at a higher interest rate of 12.5%.
When the recommendation was before for the approval of the Tender Board, the Governor had instructed the chairman of the board to accept the bid, even though there were some disputed arguments at the board discussions on the acceptance of bids.
Former DG said that instead of accepting such a high amount of bids at a very high interest rate, the Central Bank could have met the Rs. 13 billion fund requirement of the Government by March 2, 2015, using borrowings in a form of a hybrid version from both the Bank of Ceylon and in a way of REPO transactions with Employee’s Provident Fund. And still if there was a due balance, it could have then raised funds using the Direct Placements.
He was on the view that the Tender Board and Former Governor Arjun Mahendran had failed to exercise due diligence, since when such approval (10.058 billion amounts of bids) is before the Tender Board, the members and the chairman should have taken steps to prevent it, and also before instructing to approve such, Mr. Mahendran should have gone through the Monetary Board. I would say that ultimately the Monetary Board is responsible over the loss incurred to the government,” he said.
When questioned over the interferences occurred to the PDD by the Former Governor, he said that his nine years as the chairman of the Tender Board had never seen such intervention of a governor while the bond auction was taking place nor any of other intervention into the process.
Explaining the consequences of the two decisions taken by the former governor that to remove the 5% penalty rate and the acceptance of 10.058 billion amounts of bids at a higher interest rate of 12.5%, he said those two decisions had caused the hike of the market interest rate later. (Shehan Chamika Silva)