{"id":86975,"date":"2019-04-04T16:13:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86975"},"modified":"2019-04-04T16:13:11","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:13:11","slug":"money-laundering-terrorism-and-desperate-for-investment-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/04\/money-laundering-terrorism-and-desperate-for-investment-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"MONEY LAUNDERING, TERRORISM AND DESPERATE FOR INVESTMENT IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The yahapalana regime initiated\nwith the 2015 presidential election had undisclosed motives and a deformed face\nin its operation to the country and the pattern of its operation showed that it\nwas associated with highly dishonest elements. At the outset, Mr. Maithrepala\nSirisena didn\u2019t know about the president of the party (Swan Party \u2013 Shaleela\nMunasinghe) he was supposed to contest in 2015 and later the president of the\nswan party was arrested for a cybercrime and cheating a bank in Taiwan. Several\nChief Buddhist monks, clergies in other religions such as Christianity and\nHinduism, university academics, trade union leaders and NGO personnel\nassociated with so-called Good governance movement without knowing the true\npicture of the movement, which was using fabricated information with a view to\ndefeating the Rajapaksa regime which has been comparatively performing a better\nwork for the country than previous regimes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mainly associated political\nparty with the yahapalana movement was the United National Party and several\nminor parties such as Jatika Helaurumaya, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Tamil\nNational Alliance, Muslim Congress and other small Marxist parties also\nsupported to the alliance. Minor Parties associated with the movement may have\ndue to hidden objectives, but they did not disclose such objectives to the\npublic. Did international supports, especially from Western democratic\ncountries to the yahapalana movement extend with a clear understanding of the\nhidden motives of the movement, was an unresolved question so far, however,\nIndia supported to the movement was not because of a pure reason for\nre-establishing good governance in Sri Lanka, but it also appeared that a disguised\nreason of India was to oppose Chinese relations and investments in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could also assume that Marxist\npolitical parties and trade unions, which had a strong abominate with UNP and\nWestern capitalist countries to associate with the yahapalana movement was no\nother reason than gaining monetary benefits from the large financial benefits\noffered from the Obama regime to re-establish democracy in the world. The\nyahapalana movement under the leadership of Rev. Sobitha may had an honest\nintention and unexpected death of Rev Sobitha began to unfold hidden elements. At\npresent it seems that the supporters of the yahapala movement atrocious to talk\nabout the support and the role played during the yahapalana administration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, People had a doubt about\nthe unholy alliance and now many unknown facts are emerging.  My aim of this article is to consider investment-related\nfactors to discuss, there may have been developing many political objectives,\nthey are not my major points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The environment of Sri Lanka is\nquite vulnerable to money laundering and terrorism.  Internationally, many major countries such as\nthe USA, European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Korea, and others have a\nreasonable suspicion that Sri Lanka could be used to money laundering and\nterrorist activities as the attitudes of its people and political parties have\na greediness for money and such a situation could be used to money laundering\nin the name of investment.  Especially\nSri Lanka has a good environment to use for Islamic terrorism and money\nlaundering as the country desperate for attracting investment.  For example, a reason decision of the\ngovernment to lay foundation stone for an oil refinery in Mirriggavila,\nHambantota had many questions and newspapers reported that certain ministers of\nthe government, who were responsible for the investment were running overseas\nto make sure whether the proposed investment was a scam or an act for money\nlaundering eye washing of Sri Lankans.  During\nthe LTTE war, Sri Lanka was subject to directly using for terrorism and after\nthe elimination of terrorist war, money laundering in the name of investment made\npossible as the country wanted more investments to fix war damages and finding\neffective solutions for economic hardships incurred resulting massive war\nspending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is assumable that the yahapalana\nmovement had secret underhand elements of money laundering, terrorism and other\ndisguise purposes with the members of associated political parties. The leaders\nof such political parties may have unknown the hidden elements as the priority\nof the leaders of political parties was winning election obtaining the support\nof whoever was willing to extend.  The\nnature of money laundering and terrorism is disguisedly working for achieving\nobjectives and the nature of Sri Lanka at that time was to focus on purely\ndefeating the Rajapaksa regime and without a common work program. They formed\nan ad hoc union and people of the country disappointed about the movement as\nthey were concerned on many outstanding economic, social and cultural issues\nthat were not discussed in a program to defeat the Rajapaksa regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money laundering defines (internet)\nas “the process of making a large amount of money generated by a criminal\nactivity such as drug trafficking or terrorist funding appears to have come\nfrom a legitimate source.  Money from\ncriminal activity is considered dirty and the process launders it to make it\nlook clean.  Money laundering is itself a\ncrime.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Colombo Port City was initiated\nin the last period of the Rajapaksa regime and it had an original plan to\ndevelop the city to attract investment and provide a considerable volume of\nemployment. I published several articles on this project as it was\nfundamentally changing the economic and investment pattern of Sri Lanka.  During 2015 the presidential and general\nelections Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe and the Yahapalana contributors badly\ncriticized the project and promised to stop the project should they come to\npower.  The main argument was that the\nproject would be subjected to environmental damage and create problems to poor\nfishing community in North Colombo and Negombo areas  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original project did not focus\non creating a financial service center with a view to attracting black or money\nearns from criminal activities and China as an experienced country of detecting\nmoney laundering, the Port City Development Project had potential to attract\nlegitimate investments and had a trust of Sri Lanka\u2019s government to protect the\ncountry from illegal dealings.  However,\nthe Yahapalana regime, despite the promises given during elections in 2015 did\nnot stop as stated, however, the project was changed to a financial city and\nthe purpose of changing the project was questionable. The change in the purpose\nof the project created several issues in the country.  As the project initiated by the Rajapaksa\nregime, the land area was a part of Sri Lanka except the portion given to China\nand the land was subject to the law of the country in which money laundering is\nillegal.  The dishonest elements of the\nYahapalanaya changed the original project converting to a financial city, most\nprobably with an intention to use it for money laundering purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now land reclamation using outside\nsoil has already completed and the government has a role to make legal reforms\nof the country to change the existing applicable law in the area to open for\ninvestment activities and existing law of the country concerns on inward\nremittances and outward remittances.  To\nattract foreign investment for financial services, it should allow money coming\nfrom outside and transfer to outside.  In\nthis process, there will be opportunity to money laundering and recently media\nreported that the government wants to change the exchange legislation, why the\ngovernment desperate for such legal reforms. The relaxation of existing legal\nconditions should be based on the foreign exchange reserves of the country and\nwhen Sri Lanka has an environment that the monetary unit of the country has a\ntrend to radically depreciated against hard currencies of overseas, why the\ngovernment wants to relax current exchange regulations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political parties associated\nwith the Yahapalanaya was silent on the changes of the project and the current\nexperience in Sri Lanka in relation to drug business clearly show that Sri\nLanka needs an authoritative government leader who can take firm decisions to\nprevent and control different faces of investments for money laundering.  No sooner the presidential election completed\nin 2015, dishonest elements of the yahapalanaya emerged and commenced with the\nCentral Bank Bond Scam and the regime was reluctant to take legal against the\ncriminal elements of the party heavyweights. In October 2018, the president had\nto change the government as the prime minister of the government has not taken\nappropriate action to eliminate corrupt practices of the government and\nsupposed to authorize the new constitution which possibly allows the disunity\nof the country, which might support illegal criminal activity such as money\nlaundering as the constitutional reforms focus creating more powerful\nprovincial governments which cannot be controlled by the central government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hidden elements of\nconstitutional reforms did not broadly debate as the committee to the\nconstitutional reforms failed to submit a draft constitution and if the draft\nwas submitted, people would have opportunity to debate potential problems in\nthe future in relat1ion to money laundering and terrorism with the new\nconstitution.  Therefore, the writing of\nnew constitution is not an overnight job, it needs considering many aspects and\nit might take more than three years to consolidate broad spectrum of views.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other area of the investment\npolicy of the yahapalana regime is the hidden potential of its association with\nterrorism.  Sri Lanka eliminated open\nterrorism of LTTE movement in 2009, however, ISIS terrorism is working around\nthe world, which shows different faces that may be in the form of a formal\nreligion or another type of human services that are quite difficult to\nidentify. After 2009, there were small-scale conflicts in the country in\nvarious places such as Beruwala, Kandy and the culprits of the conflicts have\nan association with yahapalana advocates is general opinion of people and\nso-called potential investors might indirectly or directly support to terrorist\nelements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, terrorism defines in the\nbroad sense that “the use of intentional violence as a mean to create\nterror among masses of people or fear to achieve a religious or political\naim.  It is used in this regard primarily\nto refer to violence during the peace time or in a war against\nnon-combatants”.  As people of Sri\nLanka was fully aware LTTE terrorism created terror among masses of people and\nnow the face of terrorism appears that it has different techniques and\nreligious aims. There was some information that certain people of Sri Lanka\nassociated with international terror groups and this means that terrorism can\nassociate with investment in Sri Lanka. Although the investors have no\nintention to create terror among masses of people in Sri Lanka, there may be camouflaged\naims with investments.  When the country\ndesperate for foreign direct investment it would be a greensward for terrorism\nfocused investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The above discussion showed that\nmoney laundering and terrorism are variables that need to be a part of investment\nanalysis.  Traditionally investment\nanalysis focus on very conservative variables, which are analysed on either\nmanipulated data or estimate based past recorded data.  The worksheet of analysis generates results\nfor human decision making and there are many hidden points that are ignored or\npurposely disregarded or deliberately in cold-shoulder with the influences of\nvarious incentives to analyser or due to the political influences. Politicians\nin the government of Sri Lanka are audacious as they want statistics that shows\nevidence that they bought foreign investment. \nThe general attitudes of people are that when foreign direct investment\ncomes, economic development and growth process would be stimulated to provide\nmore employment opportunities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes ago I had reviewed credit\ndecisions and analysis in a major government bank in Sri Lanka and found that\nanalysts used a weak process and inappropriate techniques for credit\nanalysis.  The vicious aspect of the\nanalysis was bribery and political influences which prevented generating\naccurate outcomes from the analysis and generated highly unprofitable and\ncontrite results to the bank.  When it\nconsiders the investment analysis from that point of views, it can be assumed\nthat investment analysis in Sri Lanka is not a reliable and does not consider\nessentially required points in the analysis process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally investment analysis\nconsiders location and investors financial strength and economic aspects in\nwhich direct or indirect economic benefits such as employment opportunities,\nforeign exchange earning and impact to national income etc limited points are discussed\nsince information provided by the investors provide limited area of information\nor information requested by investment analysts.  Allowing for foreign investment on the\noutcome of such a narrow analysis could not be detected hidden aims of money\nlaundering motives and terrorism aspects of the proposed investment.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investment analysis in Sri Lanka\nmust be in a broader analytical framework, which includes an intelligence\nanalysis that consider the money laundering, terrorism, domestic and\ninternational politics, attitudes toward the investment of surrounding\ncountries and other vital factors.  Some\nof the factors in an intelligence analysis might not quantitatively evaluate\nand in such a situation qualitive analysis would be useful for decision making.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka needs a good investment\nanalysis process with acceptable policies and transparency.  The current investment process seems a quite\nclose process as the government wants to gain political advantages out of the\ninvestment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS The yahapalana regime initiated with the 2015 presidential election had undisclosed motives and a deformed face in its operation to the country and the pattern of its operation showed that it was associated with highly dishonest elements. At the outset, Mr. Maithrepala Sirisena didn\u2019t know about the president of the party (Swan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,124,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-edward-theophilus","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86975","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=86975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}