{"id":73425,"date":"2018-01-04T13:43:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T20:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=73425"},"modified":"2018-01-04T13:43:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T20:43:57","slug":"treasury-bonds-shouldnt-prime-minister-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/01\/04\/treasury-bonds-shouldnt-prime-minister-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasury Bonds: Shouldn\u2019t Prime Minister resign?"},"content":{"rendered":"

DR. JAYANTHA RATNAWEERA\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

According to media reports, when the name of Arjuna Mahendran came up to the Cabinet of Ministers as a nominee for the post of Governor of the Central Bank, several cabinet members had apparently objected to his being considered for the post, but the Prime Minister (PM) had insisted that Mahendran be appointed highlighting his merits and saying that he would take the full responsibility for the appointment.<\/p>\n

Now that the misdeeds of Mahendran, as the Governor, have been revealed resulting in the loss of over eleven billion rupees to the government, the best the PM could do at this stage, as a gentleman to honour his word, is to tender his resignation from the position of Prime Minister. More than the loss of money, the loss of reputation of the Central Bank and the highly respected position it had both locally and internationally is a greater loss to the country.<\/p>\n

When the Employees\u2019 Provident Fund scheme was established many decades ago to grant retirement benefits to employees in the private sector who were not entitled to a pension, instead of establishing a separate body to manage it, its management was entrusted to the Central Bank on the presumption that the hard-earned money of the people would be in safe hands. But, now it was proved to be otherwise, breaching the trust the employees and the government had in the Bank.<\/p>\n

In the President\u2019s statement telecast over electronic media on the 3rd, reference was made to several recommendations made by the Commission to prevent recurring of such losses in the future, including amending existing laws and bringing in new laws. However, it is very doubtful whether such damage control measures could erase the damage already inflicted and restore the Bank\u2019s reputation, which like a girl\u2019s virginity once lost is lost forever.<\/p>\n

It may be recalled that the PM on several occasions, both within and outside the Parliament, made attempts to cover up Mahendran\u2019s misdeeds. He first appointed a committee of three attorneys handpicked up by him to report on the issue, who exonerated Mahendran fully. When the COPE report on the bond issue was submitted to Parliament, before the report was taken up for debate, it was conveneintly dissolved. Further, the PM defended Mahendran at every opportunity he got. Covering up a misdeed is equally an offence as doing the misdeed itself. The Commission did not want to take PM into task on this issue probably to avoid toppling the apple cart.<\/p>\n

With all the damage done to the country and to its economy by Mahendran, the PM should not be allowed to go scot free for handing over the Central Bank to Mahendran, particularly when there was opposition at the Cabinet, as if the Bank was his inherited property. Though the Commission has not held the PM responsible explicitly for Mahendran\u2019s misdeeds, unlike in the case of his buddy who was found guilty of lying to the Commission, the PM has no option other than to tender his resignation if he has even an iota of self-respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DR. JAYANTHA RATNAWEERA\u00a0Courtesy The Island According to media reports, when the name of Arjuna Mahendran came up to the Cabinet of Ministers as a nominee for the post of Governor of the Central Bank, several cabinet members had apparently objected to his being considered for the post, but the Prime Minister (PM) had insisted that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73425","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=73425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}