{"id":93152,"date":"2019-09-20T13:14:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T20:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93152"},"modified":"2019-09-20T13:14:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T20:14:31","slug":"chinas-alit-rejects-sri-lanka-leaders-graft-allegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/20\/chinas-alit-rejects-sri-lanka-leaders-graft-allegation\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s ALIT rejects Sri Lanka leader’s graft allegation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy London South East<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

COLOMBO, Sept 20 (Reuters) – China’s state-run Aerospace Long-March International Trade Co (ALIT) on Friday rejected Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena’s allegation of misappropriating 2 billion rupees ($11 million) in a deal to work on the construction of South Asia’s tallest tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sirisena made the allegation at the inauguration on Monday of the 356-meter Lotus Tower, which overlooks Beira Lake in Colombo, sparking a political row in the country, which has relied heavily on China for project finance. A parliamentary panel will investigate the allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The $104.3 million project was 80% funded by Exim Bank of China, with China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (CEIEC) and ALIT recommended as the main contractors by Chinese government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sirisena alleged ALIT in 2016 had vanished, misappropriating some 2 billion rupees deposited with it by Sri Lanka’s state-run Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALIT in a statement said it had left the consortium in August 2015, entrusting its partner CEIEC to act solely on its behalf to fulfil the contract with the TRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also said the TRC, according to the contract, paid $15.6 million (2 billion rupees) into CEIEC’s account in Exim Bank in October 2012, the same amount to which Sirisena referred to as misappropriated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This sum had been used for the project purpose solely,” ALIT said in a statement, without elaborating how and when the money was spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sirisena’s predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in power when the alleged incident took place in 2012, has denied any corruption in the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE) said on Wednesday it will probe the allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After coming to power in 2015, Sirisena suspended most Chinese-backed infrastructure projects started under Rajapaksa, citing allegations of corruption and the flouting of rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sirisena’s Lotus Tower allegation comes ahead of a presidential election set for Nov. 16, which Rajapaksa’s brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political sources close to Sirisena and Rajapaksa have said talks between the president’s center-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) for a coalition deal have broken down. ($1 = 181.1000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Shihar Aneez, editing by Louise Heavens)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy London South East COLOMBO, Sept 20 (Reuters) – China’s state-run Aerospace Long-March International Trade Co (ALIT) on Friday rejected Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena’s allegation of misappropriating 2 billion rupees ($11 million) in a deal to work on the construction of South Asia’s tallest tower. Sirisena made the allegation at the inauguration on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93152","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=93152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}