Time for the CB Governor to make a dignified exit?

Monday, 23 March 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Top investment lawyer Arittha R. Wikramanayake in an article to the Financial Times said:”The country needs to protect the image of the President and Prime Minister more than it needs to protect the Governor. One can therefore only hope that better sense will prevail and the Governor resigns without causing more embarrassment to the Government.” It is very evident that the Prime Minister is willing to even sacrifice his reputation to protect the Governor. The President however very clearly is not willing to do so and this is clearly demonstrated by the actions of the President and the SLFP. In Parliament the Prime Minister was very emotional about Attorney Lakthilaka calling for the Governor’s resignation, even going to the extent of saying that Lakthilaka was in prison. Lakthilaka went to prison over a political issue involving the Prime Minister, clearly a struggle to out Wickremesinghe and install Karu Jayasuriya. On second thoughts a Karu-Sirisena combination may have been better to usher in yahapalanaya. This bond deal should have been investigated by the CID not a three-man committee led by UNP lawyers. Mahendran is defended by the reasoning that he left a lucrative job. But surely that does not give him the right to conduct the business of the Central Bank in a way which benefits his son-in-law. There is now fear that Perpetual directors are mostly non-nationals having connections to a gold quest. If Mahendran had tried this in his home country of Singapore he would have been in jail by now. I hope commonsense prevails and he leaves the bank instead of ending up like the disgraced former Chief Justice. The President should protect his yahapalanaya image at any cost and dealing with this issue is crucial for him to survive the five years. Priyantha