{"id":60387,"date":"2016-11-02T22:43:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T04:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=60387"},"modified":"2016-11-02T15:42:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T22:42:03","slug":"signs-of-desperation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/11\/02\/signs-of-desperation\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of desperation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorail\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

November 2, 2016, 8:02 pm<\/span>
\nThe UNP MPs who made a futile attempt to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Treasury bond scams have sought to question the eligibility of the Auditor General\u2019s Department to investigate the frauds at issue and put out a report thereon. They have blown, out of proportion, some limitations Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghe has mentioned in the report as regards the investigation in question. (What they have left unsaid is that he has compared his department\u2019s expertise etc with those of the Central Bank.) Real professionals make no pretence to omniscience unlike politicians who think no end of themselves.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the protesting UNP MPs themselves have endorsed the COPE recommendations which follow from the conclusions premised mostly on the assumptions based on the findings in the Auditor General\u2019s report. Thus, in the final analysis, these vociferous MPs have, in endorsing the COPE recommendations, subscribed to the outcome of the Auditor General\u2019s report. (Elementary, my dear Watson!)<\/p>\n

Having pathetically failed to frighten the Auditor General into submission with barks and affronts and incurred public opprobrium as a result, the UNP MPs are now assailing the credibility of his department. Their consternation is understandable. Having yelled at a female Central Bank official who testified before the COPE and scared her out of her wits, the heroes in kapati <\/i>suit thought they could bulldoze their way through. But, when they took on the Auditor General they found themselves in the same predicament as the proverbial woodpecker which pecked on a banana trunk.<\/p>\n

It is a pity that Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy has not emulated the Auditor General, who has been bold enough to brave the wrath of a bunch of conceited government MPs in the name of the truth. The country needs many more intrepid public officials like Wijesinghe to keep politicians who are full of themselves in their place.<\/p>\n

An otherwise articulate Central Bank Governor did not sound convincing at Tuesday\u2019s media briefing, where questions were raised on the bond frauds. He sought to obfuscate the issue with gobbledygook and cut a pathetic figure in the process.<\/p>\n

The question is how competent the UNP MPs are to pass judgment on the Auditor General\u2019s Department officials. Do they think they possess better qualifications than the state auditors to probe the bond scams at issue? It was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who told Parliament last year, when the issue of bond frauds was first raised, that the members of the House did not know a Treasury bond from James Bond. Many a true word is spoken in jest! The less said about our lawmakers\u2019 educational qualifications the better. Thankfully, the COPE based its findings on the Auditor General\u2019s Department report.<\/p>\n

How can those who question the state auditors\u2019 eligibility to investigate the Central Bank bond scams argue that Financial Crimes Investigation Division and the CID are competent to investigate financial frauds? Suspects are arrested and remanded on the basis of their findings! Our experience with the self-important CID officials who have \u2018interrogated\u2019 us over various issues at the behest of their political masters during the last so many years is that they should be sent back to school. It is thanks to them that the conviction rate remains as low as four percent. They are however much better than the members of parliament who question journalists on breach of privileges etc. We hope we won\u2019t be denied the pleasure of being summoned by the COPE over our news items on its report. COPE findings and recommendations we reported on have been endorsed by 16 out of 26 members of the watchdog committee! We stand vindicated.<\/p>\n

Let the \u2018yahapalana\u2019 politicians berating the Auditor General, out of sheer desperation, having failed to derail the COPE probe, be told that no amount of barking will help them dupe the public. They have laid bare their true faces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorail\u00a0Courtesy The Island November 2, 2016, 8:02 pm The UNP MPs who made a futile attempt to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Treasury bond scams have sought to question the eligibility of the Auditor General\u2019s Department to investigate the frauds at issue and put out a report thereon. They have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}