CEO says State entities made $164m thanks to Perpetual

Colombo Telegraph: Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kasun Palisena has written to all Parliamentarians denying that the company’s involvement in Treasury bonds did not cause any losses to any State entities. In his letter, Palisena claims that in fact the sale of Treasury bonds to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) and National Savings Bank (NSB) resulted in those State-owned entities making returns in excess of Rs. 25 billion ($164 million).

Palisena further states in the letter copied to the President, the Central Bank Governor, the Inernational Monetary Fund (Sri Lanka), the World Bank (Sri Lanka), the Asian Development Bank (Sri Lanka) and Transparency International (Sri Lanka) that “any person from the Central Bank or the relevant State entities” are welcome to verify this claim.

The letter was sent after the Fort Magistrate named former Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran, his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius as Palisena as suspects in the bond case. Mahendran was asked to report to the CID before 15 February, 2018.

Meanwhile, the Colombo High Court extended the freeze imposed on all bank accounts of the Perpetual Group associated with Arjun Aloysius by one month.

This determination was a response to an application made by the Attorney General on behalf of the CID. Accordingly, the bank accounts of 24 companies in the Perpetual Group will remain frozen.

Earlier, on 24 January, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) had issued a directive that none of the 24 companies within the group can carry out financial business of any sort using the funds in their bank accounts.