CBSL bond issue: COPE Chairman Handunetti vows to ‘reveal all’

 By Dharisha Bastians 

The Central Bank’s controversial bond auctions in 2015 and 2016 under former Governor Arjuna Mahendran continued to haunt the UNF-led Government yesterday, dominating heated debates in Parliament amid allegations that ruling party members were attempting to influence a legislative oversight committee to change its report on the controversy. 

Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) Chairman Sunil Handunetti yesterday vowed to “reveal all” when he tabled a report on a 21-month investigation into the controversial treasury bond auction, amid apologies from Government committee members and calls by the Joint Opposition for the resignation of the Prime Minister over the scandal. 

Making a brief intervention in the House last evening, Handunetti said he would tell the country everything that happened during COPE deliberations on the CBSL bond report. 

“We were planning to present the report. But a decision was taken at the Committee to present the report on the 25 October or during this week. The Committee will meet at 2.30 p.m. on 26 October. A part of the report has been sent for translation. We will discuss the matter further tomorrow and will submit the final report within the course of this week,” he said.  

Joining the heated debate, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe requested Parliament to have faith in the Parliamentary Committee system and to wait till the report was published. 

“You are calling me a thief but all the thieves are there on your side. Please go in front of the mirror to find thieves. The Central Bank incident was considered by the last Parliament. I have appointed the Pitipana Committee which has recommended assigning the investigation to Parliament. Thereafter the general elections were held. Now COPE is investigating this. We all need to find out the reasons for this,” he told the House. 

Responding to an allegation by UPFA MP Wimal Weerawansa that there was an attempt to prevent the COPE report on the bond auctions being presented to Parliament, Wickremesinghe expressed confidence in COPE Chairman Sunil Handunetti and said the report would be tabled in the near future.

“The outcome could have several reports. We all elected a COPE Chairman and have faith in him. We need to strengthen the Committees of Parliament. I know the Chairman is shouldering a difficult task. If this investigation was conducted during the previous President’s tenure the report would not have come out for at least 10 years,” said the Prime Minister.

Handunetti stormed out of a third day of deliberations on the CBSL report on Monday, alleging that UNP members of COPE were trying to influence the Auditor General to change his report. 

In a remarkable development, UNP COPE member and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Harsha De Silva apologised to Handunetti, if the Chairman had felt that the UNP members had wronged him and said any slight had been wholly unintended. 

“When he left the meeting last evening, I ran after him,” said the Deputy Minister, “I said Sunil, please don’t go.” 

De Silva said the UNP had “great respect” for Chairman Handunetti who had conducted affairs admirably within the legislative watchdog committee. He categorically denied that the UNP was carrying out a contract to protect certain individuals.

“I always work only according to my conscience, and my conscience is clear,” De Silva told the House last evening. He claimed that the UNP did not threaten the Auditor General as claimed in media reports. “I spoke to the Auditor General today for 45 minutes. I asked him about what has been reported in the press. I asked him if we had threatened him or insulted him. He replied that we had only been debating the technicalities,” the Deputy Foreign Minister charged. 

Members of COPE were going public with allegations that the UNP was attempting to distort the report to protect individuals to fulfill various political agendas, De Silva claimed. 

UPFA MP and Joint Opposition member Mahindananda Aluthgamage, who is also member of COPE, said the oversight committee was under heavy pressure from the Government as they probed the Central Bank issue. 

“Never in the history of COPE has a Chairman of the committee been put under so much pressure and mental strain,” the Joint Opposition Member charged. “Never has a COPE Chairman been threatened by the members of the committee,” he added. Aluthgamage, who called for the Prime Minister to step down in light of the Central Bank scandal, claimed that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had never interfered with COPE during his tenure. 

Aluthgamage is an ardent loyalist of the former President, and made out in his speech in Parliament yesterday that COPE had been fully functional and independent under the previous regime. However, despite devastating findings by COPE about mismanagement and fraud in the State sector, the former Government never acted against officials and bodies against whom the oversight committee recommended disciplinary and legal action. 

Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera, a COPE member who also addressed the House on the Central Bank issue, said there was no way the oversight committee could present two reports on the bond auction. “It is the continuity of this Government that is at stake here if action is not taken on this issue,” he warned. 

Parliament was scheduled to discuss a 1,500-page report on public enterprises compiled by COPE yesterday, but nearly every lawmaker taking the floor focused on the controversial CBSL bond auction the oversight committee is probing. 

Government Ministers and Opposition Members pushed hard for a comprehensive investigation into Perpetual Treasuries and its connections to the former Governor of the Central Bank, and demanded that the report on the Central Bank Bond investigation by COPE be presented to Parliament this week. 

Corruption watchdog wants presidential inquiry 

A local corruption watchdog has called for an independent presidential commission to probe two controversial Treasury bond auctions following reports that major rifts had emerged inside COPE, the oversight committee investigating the issue. 

In a statement released yesterday, the Anti Corruption Front said that there was information that COPE could present more than one report.  

“If the members of the COPE are divided along party lines and present different reports or if some members go against the general consensus and attempt to justify former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, this is a serious concern,” the ACF said in its statement. 

The watchdog said the bond “scam” was not just an abstract financial crime. 

“Its fallout directly affects six million EPF beneficiaries and thus directly affects Sri Lanka’s social security net,” ACF warned. 

Usually COPE uses information, observations and recommendations given by the Auditor General, about a government institution, to question officials from the relevant institutions, the anti-corruption body said. 

But ACF said that on Monday (24) UNP members of the COPE questioned the Auditor General making it obvious that the Government was carrying out a systematic campaign to cover up the biggest financial irregularity which occurred under the current administration. 

“This is not what the people want or expected. I think it’s universally accepted, apart from a few UNPers, that there had been irregularities at the Treasury bond auctions in 2015 and 2016. People also know that former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran and the monetary board are responsible for what transpired. If the current COPE is divided along party lines and fails to do its job, I think we have to place our hopes on a presidential inquiry,” said the Advisor for the Anti-Corruption Front, Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon.