President’s Secretary denies existence of a 118-name list in bond report

• Seeks AG’s advice on releasing documents

Issuing a special media statement yesterday, President’s Secretary Austin Fernando denied the existence of such a list in the report given by the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the Central Bank bond issue. 

Giving out page numbers in the report, Fernando said that, although a large number of list and names appear in pages from 35-67 in the form of various lists, there is no specific item that lists out names of politicians, journalists and other individuals who accepted money from Perpetual Treasuries Ltd. (PTL). 

“I don’t know where such a list is. I have gone through the categories that have been listed out here and no such list of 118 names can be found,” he said in a recorded video statement. 

Fernando said that he may have to undertake extensive work reading and analysing the report to find the 118 names referred to by different politicians and media outlets if he is to comply with the requests received to release the names. 

Further, he said he has to seek out the Attorney General’s advice in order take a decision to release the full report given by the COI. 

Stressing on his limited capacity to understand the sensitivity of the information contained in the documents and the report, Fernando said he will release any document only if it is cleared by both the Attorney General and the Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC). 

Referring to the Right to Information application filed by MP Dayasiri Jayasekara to access documents relating to the investigation into the controversial Bond issuance, Fernando claimed that there may be limitations in entertaining Jayasekara’s request for all documents related to the inquiry, including CID investigations reports as well as all other documents and information mentioned in the Bond Commission’s report. 

However, Fernando claimed he is awaiting advice from the AG and CIABOC DG to take a decision on the matter. 

“If they advise me to give it all, then I will give the whole stack,” he said. “There is absolutely no reason to hide anything.”