{"id":86832,"date":"2019-03-30T18:33:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T01:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86832"},"modified":"2019-04-01T15:55:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T22:55:42","slug":"yahapalana-and-corruption-part-3d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/03\/30\/yahapalana-and-corruption-part-3d\/","title":{"rendered":"YAHAPALANA AND CORRUPTION Part 3D"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Revised 1.4.19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana reacted strongly against the bond\nscam investigation. Yahapalana tried to use influence to  cover up the bond scam.  The\nAuditor General was told by Prime Minister \nthat the AG\u2019s calculations of the \nloss  from the bond scam was all\nwrong. UNP tried to move court to prevent the release of the first COPE committee\nreport. Footnotes were added to the\nsecond COPE report saying that no fraud had taken place. UNP State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe wrote\na book stating that no fraud had taken place at the bond auctions. A spate of attempts had been made to\nsabotage the COPE  inquiry , said DEW\nGunasekera .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNPers on the\nCOPE team, dubbed the \u2018footnoters \u2018had been on their hand phones during  sittings in Parliament,  Obviously, they were receiving instructions\nfrom Aloysius and shared information and perhaps allowed him to listen to\nproceedings, MPs charged. So\nwhat if there were calls made by Ministers and MPs who were members of the\nCommittee on Public Enterprises to\nArjun,\u201d asked columnist Don Manu. Is it a crime to dial a friend\u2019s\nnumber, an offense to receive a call from a friend even if he is accused of a\nwrongdoing? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nSpeaker Karu Jayasuriya decided to seek legal opinion   regarding four parliamentarians  were named before the Commission of Inquiry\nfor making telephone calls to Arjun Aloysius when in Parliament. The MPs were\nat the time serving members of the COPE team inquiring into the  bond scam. The Speaker wanted to ascertain\nwhether the disclosures warranted action since no precedent exist over such\nmatters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These  MPs \nmet Speaker Jayasuriya  to explain\nthe phone calls. Explanations had varied from calls being made for personal\nreasons to a few complaining that their political career has been damaged. They\nsaid that checking on their telephones by the CID violated the privileges they\nenjoyed under Standing Orders of Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A very senior\nofficial of the Central Bank was found removing a haul of files and documents\nfrom the bank recently, said the media in July 2017. The official in question\narrived at the bank around 7.30 pm and took the documents in his personal car\nwithout following the due procedure  of\nfirst obtaining a gate pass. Details of the documents being taken out of the\nCentral Bank have to be recorded at the Security Division of the Bank. The\nofficial had claimed that he was removing some files belonging to him. The\nfiles were removed while inquiry was going on.     The fact that the official had been linked\nto the Bond scam and was due to retire  seemed to indicate that he might have been\neliminating vital evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana    tried\nto scuttle the  COPE inquiry. A\nFundamental Rights petition was filed in 2017 \nby Ven. Thiniyawala Palitha challenging the various findings and\nstatements made in a report prepared by the Committee on Public Enterprises\n(COPE) regarding the bond issues by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in the year\nof 2015 and 2016. Lawyer S.A.\nParathalingam appeared for him. Senior state counsel was S Gnanarajah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ven. \nThiniyawela Palitha asked Supreme Court to declare that the bond\nauctions were done correctly according to Central Bank rules.  The Petitioner further stated that\nCOPE report is littered with inconsistencies, contradictions,\nmisrepresentations, which makes certain findings and statements in the COPE\nreport unsafe, prejudiced, biased, and a violation and infringement of the\nPetitioner\u2019s fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 12(1) of the\nConstitution of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petitioner is seeking an declaration that\nany findings, statements, suggestions in the  \nCOPE report that say that the direct and private placement method in the\nissue of Treasury Bonds by the Central Bank has been properly, lawfully and\ncorrectly used by the Central Bank from the month of January 2009 up until the\ndate of the COPE report, is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petitioner is further seeking an Order or\nDeclaration that as at the time of the Treasury Bond auctions of the Central\nBank that was held on February 27, 2015 and March 29, 2016, the proper, lawful\nprocess or method as regards the issue of Treasury Bonds was the auction\nprocess\/method, and not the direct\/private placement process\/method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When all this failed and  the Bond scam report was ready, Yahapalana decided\nto block the report. President  Sirisena\ndissolved Parliament  on the night of\nJune 26, 2015   just when\nD.E.W.Gunasekera was about to present the first COPE Committee report on the\nbond scam to Parliament. Had President Sirisena allowed the explosive report to\nbe tabled, the outcome of the general election in August 2015 would have been\ndifferent.  This action also paved the\nway for far bigger Treasury bond scam in March 2016. The President didn\u2019t\nappoint an investigating committee to probe these massively corrupt\ntransactions till  January 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 President Sirisena, as the Leader of this\nUNP-SLFP government, went to the incredible extent of dissolving Parliament,\none day before the DEW Gunasekera COPE Report was to be presented to the\nSpeaker, said Nivard Cabraal.\nBy such single action, he was able to save all the wrong-doers of the initial\nBond Scam of February 2015,  and he paved\nthe way for the same wrong-doers to carry out the second Bond Scam of even\ngreater proportions, in March 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission of Inquiry finished its work\nand submitted a full report to President Sirisena. Yahapalana played with this\nreport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President put  the Commission report  on his website, but with omissions. The section \nwhich   faulted the Prime Minister\nfor not taking action against the then Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran\nand also blindly believing in him was removed. The deleted para read: “The\nCommission is of the opinion that the Prime Minister made his statement in\nParliament regarding the appointment of Mr Mahendran believing in the facts\npresented by Mr. Mahendran and Mr.Samarasiri, especially the promises made by\nMr Mahendran..”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President\u2019s\nwebsite also  carried  a statement by the President  on the findings of the Commission. The first\nEnglish translation of the President\u2019s Sinhala statement was reasonably close\nto the original, but a subsequent version removed all references to\nWickremesinghe and finance minister Ravi Karunanayake.  References to Ravi Karunanayake  were brought back later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana\ngovernment did not release  the full report\nof the Commission of inquiry to Parliament.  Even the MPs in Parliament did not get the\nfull report\u201d. The\nmain report and annexures I, II, IV and V were released  to Parliament,  but not annexure No III, which contains\nmarked documents and evidence notes, said Campaign for Free and fair Elections\n(CaFFE). Annexure\nthree has neither been given to the MPs nor released to the public via the\nPresidential secretariat website, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The missing\nsection included Section C 350 (together with C 71, C 123, C 279, C 281, C 67),which\n contained detailed phone records\ncollected by the CID of conversations of journalists, politicians, religious\nleaders and civil society members who had received money from Perpetual\nTreasuries (Pvt.) Limited (PTL). In the main\nreport there are observations based on a document titled C 350,  but this is not available in the released\ndocuments.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bond\nCommission report was then  sent to the\nDepartment of National Archives    where\nit came under the National Archives Law No. 48 of 1978. Section 2 of the\nAct  said that such documents shall be\nclosed for public inspection until the lapse of 30 years after their creation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaign for\nFree and Fair Election (CaFFE) Executive Director Tennekoon  tried to get the full report, including all\nits annexes, from the Department of National Archives  and discovered  this embargo.  He found that the Right to Information Act did\nnot cover the Archives. A written directive from the Presidential Secretariat\nwas needed  to view the documents.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a delay\nof  several months   the National\nArchives gave him the report. 12 pages were missing. The missing\nsection was the  C350 report, containing\nphone records of COPE members, and former Finance Minister Ravi\nKarunanayake.”. What was given only contained details of records of calls\nbetween Central Bank officials and some other individuals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shamindra Ferdinando made a pertinent\nobservation. The  joint AG, CID and\nCentral Bank team  examining the Central\nBank Bond scam proved beyond any doubt that Sri Lanka had the required\nexpertise to undertake complex investigation, \ncommented Shamindra Ferdinando. Had investigators been given a free hand\nto inquire into revelations made by COPE and Public Accounts Committee (PAC),\nmany Ministers would have been found guilty of waste, corruption and irregularities.\nBut Parliament did  not amend Standing\nOrders to enable the watchdog committees to summon ministers, he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team investigating the Bond Scam were:\nSenior Additional Solicitor General Dappula de Livera, PC, ASG Yasantha\nKodagoda, PC, ASG Priyantha Nawana, PC, Senior DSG Milinda Gunathileka, DSG\nDilan Ratnayake, Senior State Counsel Shahida Barrie, Senior State Counsel\nNayomi Wickremasekera, Senior State Counsel Dr Avanthi Perera, State Counsel\nDhanushan Ganeshayogan, State Counsel Jehan Gunasekera. The Attorney General\nteam was assisted by five-member teams from the Central Bank as well as the\nCriminal Investigation Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude,\nit has become clear to   the public,\nthanks to the publicity given to the bond scam on TV and newspapers, that  a very serious financial scam had been\ncarried out, which those responsible \nthought would not be discovered, because of  its complexity. This was essentially a\ncolossal bank heist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was\nplanned and carried out by those who were expected to protect the finances of\nthe country. They did so with no concern for the country  and with no remorse. The scam was\npulled not once, but twice, very successfully. \nThe second one took place after the first bond scam had been\ndiscovered.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

D. E. W. Gunasekera yesterday said that the\ntop UNP leadership couldn\u2019t absolve itself of the responsibility for the bond\nscams.  W. A. Wijewardena said that both\npoliticians and officials  had acted in\ncontravention of rules and regulations governing banking operations. They had carried out the\n\u2018business\u2019 with impunity and  weren\u2019t bothered at all about the fact that it was a  serious violation [of trust].  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bond scam\ncame to light only due to the courage and integrity of a few officials, a\nrelentless media, concerned citizens, and some Parliamentarians.  The outrage of the presenters of the evening\nnews as the Presidential Commission report was released was palpable as they\nhosted a special segment dedicated to this misdemeanor, said the media. DEW Gunasekera\npaid a glowing tribute to those members of both the print and electronic media\nwho had relentlessly followed the Treasury bond scam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appendix<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shamindra Ferdinando has provided the\nfollowing time line for the bond scam:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan. 8, 2015:\nPresidential electionJan.9, 2015: Maithripala Sirisena sworn in as\nPresidentJan.9, 2015: Ranil Wickremesinghe sworn in as Prime MinisterJan.23,\n2015: Then Finance Minister Ravi K recommended Arjuna Mahendan as Governor,\nCBSLJan. 26, 2015: President Sirisena appointed Singaporean Mahendran as\nGovernor, CBSL.Feb. 26, 2015: Mahendran met ministers, Ravi K, Kabir H and UNP\nChairman Malik S at CBSL, allegedly to discuss a massive fund requirement of Rs\n18 bn (All three politicians were present when President Sirisena lambasted the\nUNP over treasury bond scams on Dec 16, 2018 at the Presidential Secretariat.\nPM Wickremesinghe and Mrs Wickremesinghe were also present.)Feb 27, 2015: First\nbond scam perpetrated. Within hours, those who mattered knew how PTL had\ncarried out the operation in connivance with Mahendran. The PTL is a fully\nowned subsidiary of Perpetual Capital (Pvt) Limited, owned by Geoffrey Joseph\nAloysius and Arjun Joseph Aloysius. The Central Bank was under the purview of\nPremier Wickremesinghe, though previously it functioned under the Finance\nMinistry. June 26, 2015: Sirisena dissolved parliament to thwart CoPE\npresenting its report on treasury bond scam. General election set for Aug. 17,\n2015. (President Sirisena paid a very heavy price for his action).The\ndissolution prevented the CoPE Chairman Dew Gunasekera from presenting his\nreport on the first treasury bond scam. In a related action, UNP Deputy Justice\nMinister Sujeewa Senasinghe moved court to bar Gunasekera from releasing his\nreport to the media.The writer sought an explanation from Gunasekera, in\nJanuary this year, at a media briefing, as to the responsibility of Sirisena\nand the SLFP in the second bond scam, perpetrated on March 29, 2016. Asked\nwhether, a far bigger second treasury bond scam could have been prevented if\nnot for the dissolution of parliament in June 2015; Gunasekera said that\nquestion should be posed to President Sirisena as he had done so. Nov 16, 2017:\nEvidence at the Bond Commission revealed how Arjun Aloysius had been in touch\nwith some members of the COPE during its hearings.Aloysius had spoken a total\nof 227 times to Sujeewa Senasinghe, 18 times with Dayasiri Jayasekara, 176\ntimes with Harshana Rajakaruna and 73 times to Hector Appuhamy during the\nperiod commencing January 2015. Nov 20, 2017: Wickremesinghe received kid\nglove treatment at P-CoI with AG Jayantha Jayasuriya assigned to question him.\nBut Wickremesinghe\u2019s affidavits received by P-CoI in response to questions sent\nto him by the P-CoI and the AG\u2019s department and PM\u2019s responses to AG Jayasuriya\nestablished the UNP\u2019s leader\u2019s complicity and failure to thwart the scams\nbeyond doubt. However, Wickremesinghe and the UNP have repeatedly denied\ninvolvement whatsoever in bond scams.  Strangely throughout this period,\nWestern powers conveniently refrained from publicly commenting on the bond scam\nthough they worked overtime to discredit the previous Rajapaksa administration\nwith the US pledging to help Sri Lanka recover stolen funds. India also pledged\nto assist yahapalana efforts. In fact, the current political leadership\ncertainly owed an explanation to the public as to how Mahendran, Aloysius and\nPTL CEO Kasun Palisena had committed the second bond scam, 13 months after the\nfirst. Obviously, they had been so sure that nothing could go wrong. Most\nprobably, they believed Mahendran was going to have his own term as the\nGovernor after having completed the period allocated to his predecessor Ajith\nNivard Cabraal. Cabraal quit immediately after the Jan 2015 presidential\npolls.The public should be grateful to former CBSL Senior Deputy Governor Dr W.\nA. Wijewardena, and the media for relentlessly pursuing the treasury bond\nscamsDec 30, 2017: P-CoI report handed over to Sirisena.Jan. 4, 2018: Sirisena\naddressed the nation regarding the P-CoI report. Sirisena mounted a devastating\nattack on the UNP over treasury bond scams in the run-up to the Feb. 10 local\ngovernment polls. Sirisena\u2019s strategy caused heavy damage to the UNP at the\nFeb. 10 polls.  (Concluded)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS Revised 1.4.19 Yahapalana reacted strongly against the bond scam investigation. Yahapalana tried to use influence to  cover up the bond scam.  The Auditor General was told by Prime Minister  that the AG\u2019s calculations of the  loss  from the bond scam was all wrong. UNP tried to move court to prevent the release of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86832","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=86832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}