Science, Technology and Research Minister Susil Premajayantha stressed the importance of taking legal action on the investigations and the recommendations made by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Bond issue.
Addressing the media yesterday at the SLFP headquarters, the Minister said the Commission has recommended that Criminal and Civil proceedings should be initiated against the those identified by the Commission and to recover all profits earned by Perpetual Treasuries.
While referring to the Bond Commission’s recommendation on the Central Bank to conduct a forensic audit of bond sales since 2008, Minister Premajayantha said the Perpetual Treasuries Limited has made a profit of Rs. 11,145 million within a short period and that should be recovered.
“The bond issue affects the country’s economy and it is important to do a forensic audit examination to quantify economic damages including the damage to public confidence on the Central Bank and the loss of new foreign investments,” he said.
The Minister charged that a certain group attempted to sweep this under the carpet to protect the real offenders. He said that the COPE had completed its probe on the controversial Central Bank bond issue of February 2015. Its then Chairman, D.E.W. Gunasekera was to table the report but the 7th Parliament was dissolved. Some MPs had incorporated footnotes into the second COPE report on the Treasury bond issue. The report was submitted and nothing happened.
He said that after the 2015 general election, the Finance Ministry had been segregated into three separate ministries called Finance, Policy Planning and Economic Affairs and Public Enterprises Development Ministry.
According to that Sri Lanka Customs and the Treasury were under the Finance Minister and the Central Bank and Planning was under the Prime Minister. All the banks are under the Public Enterprise Development Ministry.
“On February 10, a Singapore citizen was appointed as the Central Bank Governor and bond issue occurred on February 27. When we were in Opposition, we questioned the Prime Minister about this and he gave various answers. Later, he appointed the Pitipana Committee.
That report did not bear fruit since those lawyers were not aware of the situation,” the Minister said.
He added that two COPE committee investigations were conducted, while Arjun Mahendran was the Central Bank Governor. But the Presidential Commission was appointed after removing Arjun Mahendran from his position which helped to gather evidence from Central Bank officials.
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