{"id":98888,"date":"2020-02-10T18:35:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T01:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98888"},"modified":"2020-02-10T18:35:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T01:35:54","slug":"central-bank-bond-scam-and-misleading-public-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/10\/central-bank-bond-scam-and-misleading-public-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"CENTRAL BANK BOND SCAM AND MISLEADING PUBLIC PART 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Central Bank bond scam has been in news media of Sri Lanka since 2015 and when I was watching TV programs on this matter I had a feeling that it has been used by many people in the country to mislead public who haven\u2019t clear understanding about the dealing and some TV presenters and the participants of TV programs were groping in the dark without clearly identifying the issues relating to the case and how the issues breached the prevailing laws and accepted financial procedures of the country.\u00a0 I also had a reasonable doubt whether a television company has taken a bribe from Mr. Arjun Aloysius and broadcasts TV programs to mislead the public.\u00a0 If it could prove the TV company might responsible for criminal liabilities. I am writing this article purely based on the right to express an opinion, which is recognized in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is required to identify main\nissues relating to the case which clearly show the breach of law and trust of\nthe public. I have not seen the forensic audit report and contents in the\nreport either, and the contents of the report are not aware of the public.  According to my understanding the case\ninvolved in a range of acts, which breached the Criminal Law and Administrative\nLaw of Sri Lanka. I feel that identifying the issues point by point is important\nto the public as they have no proper understanding of the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Borrowing funds to the government at a higher rate of interest than the remaining rate at the market was cheating and with a malice motive because the additional expenditure to the government will go to someone’s pocket.\u00a0 It is already revealed that who got the additional expenditure to incur to the government and it is quite clear that decision-makers to brow funds at a higher rate were guilty of cheating the government. In simple terms, if the control price of one measure of rice is Rs 85 and anyone buys more than Rs 85 it means that it is cheating the consumers.\u00a0 Who made this decision and the purpose of the decision-maker were forensically vital and did forensic auditors concerned on this fundamental issue relating to the bond scam and has it mentioned and written in the report? Many persons who were analyzing the bond scam in the media did not mention this fundamental issue and the consequences of the issue.\u00a0 The consequences of the borrowing action would broader and it will go to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who made the borrowing decision to obtain funds at a higher rate and had the person who decided to take such a borrowing knew about the breach of law in terms of criminal and administrative law of Sri Lanka?\u00a0 Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe as a graduate of law and Mr. Arjun Mahendran as a graduate of philosophy and the experienced banker would have known they were making decisions contrary to the law.\u00a0 According to the administrative law of Sri Lanka, public officers have the power to make administrative decisions if such decisions were within four corners and the decision should have beneficial to the public. If it was not within these conditions, they would have treated as ultra-virus decisions. The possible consequences of the decisions are broader and it has no benefits to the public despite the public or the government has to supper for a longer period. Who did the borrowing decision and how such a decision will negatively impact the public?\u00a0 Did forensic auditors calculate the possible negative impact to the government? What were the supporting points of decision-makers when they were making an ultra-virus decision?\u00a0 The information should have recorded in the minutes of the Monetary Board.\u00a0 Minutes of the meeting of the monetary board of the central bank should have been recorded the explanations and the public has no understanding of what was mentioned in the minutes of the meeting. If neither Mr. Arjuna Mahendran and Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe believe that they are not guilty of the decision they should come forward and explain to the public.\u00a0 Despite Mr. Arjuna Mahendran is hiding in Singapore and Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe is silent. The behavior of Mr. Arjuna Mahendran and Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe proves that they have accepted the guilty of wrongdoing.\u00a0 This information is most probably enough to have an ex-pate trial against both Mr. Arjuna Mahendran and Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022          The\ninformation relating to the Central Bank Bond scam doesn\u2019t provide clear\nevidence to the public who decided to borrow funds at a higher rate than the\nmarket rate, either by Mr. Arjuna Mahendran, the governor of the Central Bank\nor Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Honourable Prime Minister or both were together is\nnot clear to the public.  If Mr. Arjuna\nMahendran took the decision, the procedure was that the decision should have\nbeen informed to the monetary Board and get the covering approval. When Mr. JR\nJayewardene was president of Sri Lanka wanted to obtain his travel allowance\nfor the US $ 1000, which was an amount higher than the regulation and I\nreferred to the governor of the central bank and obtained the approval over the\nphone and later obtained covering approval from the governor in writing.  In this way, Mr. Arjuna Mahendran should have\nreported to the Monetary Board and obtain approval.  Did forensic auditors investigate this\nmatter?  It is not clear to the public.  If Mr. \nRanil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister took the decision he should\nhave got the approval from the cabinet (Executive) and later the approval for\nthe executive decision from the legislature (parliament).  According to the information available to the\npublic, it seems that there was a clear breach of procedures which amounted to\ncheat public funds and criminal breach of trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022          As\nthe information is given to the public, there was a breach of criminal law and\ncivil (breach of administrative law). The punishment for the criminal breach\nmay be jail terms while the breach of civil law will be indemnifying the loss\nincurred to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022          The\npurpose of the forensic audit was to identify supportive information for\nlitigation of responsible persons and the volume of money involved in the two\nareas, but the public has no information about the forensic audit results and\nit seems that TV programs on this matter are misleading the public or attempt\nto coverup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What was the purpose of borrowing money and how did use borrowed money were other aspects that should have investigated by a forensic audit? If money misappropriated without using for the purpose who got the real benefits out of funds.\u00a0 As people understand a part of the money was distributed to candidates of UNP in the 2015 general election and can the ruling party use the government funds for election expenses? Who were the UNP candidates used funds and they also guilty of misappropriation of government funds? The public was not given information about this.\u00a0 According to criminal law provisions, the members of the parliament who got the benefits from borrowed funds are guilty and they also should a part of the trial.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Central Bank bond scam has been in news media of Sri Lanka since 2015 and when I was watching TV programs on this matter I had a feeling that it has been used by many people in the country to mislead public who haven\u2019t clear understanding about the dealing and some TV […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98888","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=98888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}