President, CB, AG meeting brings up numerous causes for delay in action against Bond scam culprits

A top-level meeting chaired by President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday had exposed ‘numerous causes’ for the delay in taking action against those responsible for the Treasury Bond scam. 

A statement by the President’s Office said that senior officials of the Central Bank revealed that according to the Presidential Commission to inquire into the Central Bank bond issue, the said bond frauds – worth over Rs. 1000 billion – had occurred during the period of 2002, 2003 to 2016.  

This information was disclosed during a meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat under the President’s patronage to inquire into the present progress of the probes relating to the Central Bank bond issue as well as to discuss the future steps in this regard.  

During this meeting, it was shown that an arrest warrant had been issued on Arjuna Mahendran, and the Government of Sri Lanka had informed the Government of Singapore to produce him according to the court order, but up till now, the Government of Singapore had not taken necessary steps in this regard.

The importance of rapidly submitting the charge sheets against the suspects in remand custody was discussed in this meeting, as well as the importance of quickly filing of cases against the offenders who had given false evidence in Presidential Commission proceedings, and for the offenders who had intentionally destroyed the evidences relating to this investigation.

It was decided to file cases against the respondents of the Central Bank bond issue, within a particular timeframe, after the conclusion of the investigations relating to them. 

Another fact that was revealed during this meeting was that the Sectoral Oversight Committee had obstructed in making amendments to the Acts related to the cases of this issue. The Presidential Commission decided to conduct a forensic audit to obtain accurate information regarding these huge financial malpractices on 18 January. Even though one year has lapsed since after taking this decision, it has not been implemented and the officials of the Attorney General’s Department have stated this as a grave fault.

It was revealed that the important parts related to this investigation, the telephone voice recordings used by the respondents, had been deleted and those recordings were not sent abroad for further investigation by experts and with new technology. According to the above facts, it was revealed that interferences were made in such a manner that the relevant institutions could not carry out investigations expeditiously. 

According to all the facts mentioned, it had been decided to give priority to expedite these investigations and to file cases against the offenders in an exact timeframe and to commence the forensic audit without any delay. Furthermore, it was decided to hold a progress review meeting of these activities once a month under the patronage of the President.

President Sirisena further said that the people of this country believe that all the relevant institutions, including the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the Attorney General’s Department, the Police Department and the Central Bank, will fulfil their respective duties in an impartial as well as independent manner. 

Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya, President’s Counsel Sarath Jayamanne, the Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne, and the Acting Governor of the Central Bank Nandalal Weerasinghe and others participated in this meeting.