{"id":62618,"date":"2017-01-23T22:52:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T04:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=62618"},"modified":"2017-01-23T14:56:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T21:56:26","slug":"regarding-arjuna-mahendran-acting-as-an-advisor-to-the-finance-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/01\/23\/regarding-arjuna-mahendran-acting-as-an-advisor-to-the-finance-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Regarding Arjuna Mahendran acting as an advisor to the Finance Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anti-Corruption Front (ACF) <\/span><\/h2>\n

Anti-Corruption Front (ACF) wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena today (23) demanding him to prevent controversial former governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran from attending meetings at the Ministry of Finance. ACF states that Mahendran is a regular attendee of the meeting the Finance Minister holds every Tuesday and Thursday with Governor of the Central Bank Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Dr. R H S Samaratunga, Secretary to the Treasury, and R. Paskaralingam, Advisor to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs and advises Coomaraswamy on decisions that should be taken by the Monetary Board.<\/p>\n

His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena,
\nPresident of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka,
\nPresident’s Secretariat,
\nColombo 01.<\/p>\n

January 23, 2016<\/p>\n

Your Excellency,<\/p>\n

Regarding Arjuna Mahendran acting as an advisor to the Finance Ministry <\/u><\/p>\n

We are extremely grateful of your decision to appoint a ‘Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry this week to investigate the Central Bank bond issue and recommend actions.’ However former Governor of the Central Bank, Arjuna Mahendran, who faces serious allegations regarding the controversial Treasury bond scam, currently acts as an advisor to the Ministry of Finance on the Central Bank.<\/p>\n

Mahendran is a regular attendee of the meeting the Finance Minister holds every Tuesday and Thursday with Governor of the Central Bank Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Dr. R H S Samaratunga, Secretary to the Treasury, and R. Paskaralingam, Advisor to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs. When Coomaraswamy was appointed Governor of the Central Bank this meeting was held each Monday and Thursday at 5 pm on July, August and September. The dates later changed to Tuesday and Thursday and the last meeting was held on January 6, 2017 at 11 am.<\/p>\n

During that meeting Mahendran advised Coomaraswamy on the decisions that should be taken by the Monetary Board, which is a violation of the Banking Act.<\/p>\n

This is a disastrous situation and we believe that you must show your commitment to good governance by action and not by mere words.<\/p>\n

Your Excellency, if Mahendran is still in a position to advise and influence the Monetary Board, the people of Sri Lanka will surely think that the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry which you will appoint will be another ploy to buy time. Thus we sincerely believe that you would immediately prevent Mahendran from communicating with the Treasury as a coordinator to the Ministry of Finance.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n

Ven Ulapone Sumangala Thera,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon,
\nChairman – ACF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Advisor – ACF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anti-Corruption Front (ACF) Anti-Corruption Front (ACF) wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena today (23) demanding him to prevent controversial former governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran from attending meetings at the Ministry of Finance. ACF states that Mahendran is a regular attendee of the meeting the Finance Minister holds every Tuesday and Thursday with Governor […]<\/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-62618","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\/62618","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=62618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}