by Nirmala Kannangara

Thilanga Sumathipala

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) which denied its employees the annual New Year bonus last month claiming lack of funds, have released millions of rupees from its funds to ‘assist’ its office bearers and their spouses to enjoy a memorable pre ‘Christmas’ in London next month.

Startling details have been revealed of how 13 office bearers are to take wing to London on business class using SLC money. Cash-strapped SLC will spend further millions on their accommodation and transportation. Other than the office bearers, their spouses, and in some instances their children too, will join in the joy ride.

President SLC, Thilanga Sumathipala and Mrs Sumathipala are amongst those who will be travelling to London together with Assistant Secretary SLC Raveen Wickramaratne, Mrs Wickramaratne and their daughter, Treasurer SLC Shammi Silva, Executive Committee Member SLC Sujeewa Godaliyadda and Mrs. Godaliyadda, Coordinator – Membership Facilities Committee SLC Priyantha Zoysa and Mrs Soyza, SLC UK Representative Sarath Abeysundara and Mrs. Abeysundara, Hony Assistant Treasurer SLC Lalith Rambukwella, Mrs Rambukwella and their daughter, Executive Committee Member SLC Aruna de Silva and Mrs. De Silva, Executive Committee Member SLC Chryshantha Theadora Kapuwatte, Mrs Kapuwatte and their daughter, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) SLC Ashley de Silva and Mrs. De Silva, Advisor/ Consultant SLC Aravinda De Silva and Mrs. De Silva, Secretary SLC Mohan de Silva and Mrs. De Silva and Selector on Tour Sanath Jayasuriya.

Reliable SLC sources who wished to remain anonymous told The Sunday Leader that none of these office bearers will spend their own money to purchase air tickets for their spouses and children but would certainly get it covered from Cricket Board funds.

“The approximate cost for a business class ticket would be Rs. 290,000 and the economy class ticket would cost around Rs. 120,000. What they most probably will do is, take the money for their business class ticket and obtain economy class tickets for the spouse as well,” sources added.

Other than those who hold office at SLC, those who are connected to provincial cricket associations that helped Thilanga Sumathipala in his Cricket Board election would have their air ticket costs covered. In addition, food and lodging, gala dinner ticket and in the event there is a necessity -  the match tickets – will be paid for from the money they received to their cricket associations.

“Money was dispersed to certain provincial cricket associations without any evaluation. All the provincial cricket associations that received this money were those which helped Thilanga Sumathipala at his Cricket Board election. So the representatives of these associations will use this money for their London trip. The provincial cricket associations that did not support Sumathipala in his election to office were not given this money. Since there is a possibility that other provincial associations may question as to why only representatives of selected provincial cricket associations were given money to travel abroad, Sumathipala disbursed SLC money to his friendly cricket associations enabling them to use the funds given to them for their London tour,” sources claimed.

The Sunday Leader is in possession of the hotel booking confirmation for The Kensington, 109-113 Queens Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5LR, where Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera is planning to stay from June 2 to June 14.

In addition to Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera’s London tour expenses, SLC is footing the hotel accommodation expenses for Thilanga Sumathipala, Sanath Jaysuriya, Lalith Rambukwella and Ashley de Silva while Raveen Wickramaratne, Shammi Silva and Mohan de Silva have requested an allowance to find their own accommodation.

According to the details we are in receipt of, accommodation charges for Thilanga Sumathipala, Lalith Rambukwella and Ashley de Silva will cost the SLC a staggering Rs. 2.128 million for 15 days. The room charges for a day is 219 Sterling Pounds which comes to Rs. 709,560 for 15 days per person. For Raveen Wickremaratne, Shammi Silva and Mohan de Silva a daily allowance of US$ 400 per person had been allocated which is equivalent to Rs. 58,400 per day. Raveen Wickremaratne will be in London for one month and for 30 days he will be getting an allowance of Rs. 1.752 million for food and lodging. Shammi de Silva will receive an allowance of US$ 400 per day for 15 days (Rs. 876,000) and Mohan de Silva who will be in London for 10 days will get an allowance of US$ 400 per day (Rs.584,000).

Sanath Jayasuriya who left for London on May 26 for two test matches would be returning to Sri Lanka on June 14 and for his stay there he would be receiving an allowance of US $ 6000 for 15 days.

Meanwhile the proposed gala dinner at the ‘Long Hall’ at the Lords Cricket Grounds on Saturday June 4 too is a waste of SLC funds, the sources claimed. According to the sources, although SLC is targetting this gala dinner to raise funds for the kidney donation programme initiated by President Maithripala Sirisena, due to high expenses on the UK tour, the money spent for the dinner would not be recovered.

“The dinner ticket is priced at 200 Pounds each and the earnings of this gala dinner would be much less than what the SLC had spent on air tickets, hotel accommodation, food and lodging allowances and for the banquet hall and for the food that is served. The estimated cost for the banquet hall charges and for the dinner is 45,750 Pounds which is equivalent to Rs. 9.882 million,” sources pointed out.

According to the sources, SLC had already dispatched souvenirs worth Rs.18 million to be sold at the gala dinner and it is systematised by Shift Integrated which is a company known to Thilanga Sumathipala.

“Although quotations should have been called to offer the contract to organise the gala dinner, by-passing procurement guidelines, Sumathipala gave the job to Shift Integrated. We are yet to learn what Shift’s charges are which would certainly be a few hundred million rupees. Even at the T-20 World Cup theme song launching ceremony and to send off the national team for the tournament, the event management was given to Media Gang owned by an offspring of a VVIP and Shift Integrated which cost over Rs. 40 million when SLC has its own in-house marketing division which could have handled the entire programme without outsourcing and paying millions of rupees,” sources claimed.

Meanwhile, Thilanga Sumathipala had come under fire for making arbitrary appointments to SLC by-passing human resources policies. According to the sources, removing vibrant former cricket players from SLC claiming that SLC is financially suffering due to excess staff, Sumathipala had appointed 13 consultants who supported him in his election.

“As a result of these new appointments, SLC is compelled to reserve Rs. 2.8 million monthly only for the newly appointed consultants and coordinators. Anura Weerasinghe who is an employees at Bank of Ceylon was appointed  as a Consultant to National Cricket Development and is paid Rs.100,000 per month in addition to what he gets from Bank of Ceylon. Crishantha de Silva was appointed Coordinator HR/ Administration for a salary of Rs.150,000 and is over 67 years of age. Although he was appointed to this post he has no experience in HR/ Administartion. Priyantha Soyza had been appointed as a Coordinator for a salary of Rs.100,000 and is an employee of State Timber Corporation,” sources claimed.

Vrai Raymonds had been appointed as Media Consultant for a salary of Rs. 75,000 although SLC has a Media Manager. Chandrashan Perera, husband of Vrai Raymonds was appointed as Communication Manager for a salary of Rs. 200,000. Sarath Chandra Liyanage is the newly appointed Security Liaison Officer and he gets a remuneration of Rs.150,000. Although there is a permanent Security Manager at SLC, Liyanage was still employed by Sumathipala because of his close friendship with the SLC President.

“Indrani Ariyaratne had been appointed as Consultant, Ladies Cricket in order to develop ladies cricket in the country, although she has never played cricket. She is the Secretary of the Moratuwa Sports Club and receives a monthly salary of Rs. 200,000. Priyantha Algama is the Coordinator of Women’s and Youth Cricket and is the owner of the Borella Wine Stores. Shibbly Vilcassim was appointed as the Coordinator to the SLC Vice President  and is in charge of International Cricket. He owns ‘The Cricket Shop’ which is the main supplier of cricket goods for SLC. Charith Senanayake who managed Sumathipala’s social media campaign at the election was appointed Manager National Team with a salary of Rs. 250,000. Janaka D. Godagamage and Godfrey Dabare were appointed Coordinator District Coaching and Manager International Venue respectively. All these appointees had supported Sumathipala at his Cricket Board elections,” sources added.

According to the sources, each time Sumathipala became the President of Sri Lanka Cricket, interim committees were appointed before his term ended.

“As Thilanga Sumathipala swindled SLC funds, the respective Sports Ministries had to appoint interim committees. From the way he is presently handing SLI finances, it is expected that very soon Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe who is keeping a close eye on SLC will appoint an interim committee,” sources alleged.

All attempts to contact President SLC, Thilanga Sumathipala and Secretary SLC Mohan de Silva failed. Although text messages were sent seeking a comment on the allegations levelled at SLC, neither of them returned the calls nor responded to the text messages.

• Navy says not bound to answer questions raised by private parties

by Camelia Nathaniel

Nissanka Senadhipathi

Avant Garde Chairman Nissanka Senadhipathi claims that the government forcibly signed the agreement to take over naval operations that had been under Avant Garde for five years. He claims that taking over the operations is illegal, and he has filed a case against the takeover.

Avant Garde claims to have brought in US$ 6.8 and US$ 10 million dollars during some months. But during the period the Navy was handling the operations, only US$ 3.8 million was brought in the country monthly on average.

Senadhipathi says that in comparison to what they were bringing in, Sri Lanka is earning just US$ 1.2 million today.

“If the Navy Commander disputes this fact, I challenge him to confront me with documentation to prove me wrong. The Navy has lost 60 per cent of what we were bringing in this country. I can prove all these claims,” Senadhipathi said.

In response to the claim that the Navy is now losing 60 per cent of what was earned by Avant Garde, Navy Spokesman Capt. Akram Alavi said that from the time the Navy took over maritime operations from Avant Garde, the average income they get per month is well above US$ 2 million per month.

Consolidated fund

When asked whether it is a drop compared to the time Avant Garde was operating the maritime services, Captain Alavi said that the government consolidated fund received only 20 per cent of what Avant Garde earned but now the entire income goes to the consolidated fund.

Senadhipathi has also questioned whether the Navy Commander will take responsibility for the loss of income and employments of 135 officers and 4400 other youth.

“Most of my staff were Naval personnel as my business activities were related to Naval affairs. Today these parties are at home without jobs. Will the Navy Commander take responsibility for their plight? The Navy Commander is doing this just to score points with the new government. He claims to be putting the earnings from the business that was taken over from us to the consolidated fund. During our time, we gave 20 per cent to the Navy and 20 per cent to Rakna Lanka which were both government institutions. Accordingly, I have paid 40 per cent to the government. Hence, 40 per cent of US$ 3.8 million dollars is around US$ 1.5 million. We were also paying the same amount to the government consolidated fund.”

Lost jobs

Senadhipathi said that the Navy was not in a position to conduct business and they cannot go overseas and obtain orders etc. He charged that unlike with Avant Garde, the Navy cannot engage in competitive business, and as a result, so many others are starting up operations and taking over the maritime businesses from the Navy. As a result, it is the people who have lost their jobs. He said that all those who worked for Avant Garde were officers and others who had served the country with dedication, and they had put the country first even at the expense of their own lives.

“These officers served with dedication to the country. At the end of their service, these officers have no jobs, and they cannot support their families with the meagre pension they get. I paid them from 10-15 lakh monthly, and they have lost all that now. The Navy Commander assured all the Avant Garde employees that they will not lose their jobs, but today he has let them down. I urge him not to sacrifice his fellow war heroes’ jobs so that the Navy Commander can get his next appointment either as a diplomat or in high ranking post,” Senadhipathi charged.

Senadhipathi went on to claim that it was due to the dedication and commitment of retired Naval officers like former Navy Commander Admiral Somathilaka Dissanayake, Admiral Illangakone, Admiral Jayanath Colombage, and Admiral Jayantha Perera that they were able to secure the Nigerian contract.

“I am not a naval officer but an army officer, so it was they who did the bulk of the work in order to get this contract. They are the ones who went to Nigeria and somehow managed to gain the trust and confidence of the Nigerian government. Earlier, the Nigerian government did not want to do business with us as they had been warned that Sri Lanka was a corrupt country and that it was not conducive to do business with us.”

“The Navy portrayed us as an illegal and fraudulent company and lied about us in order to take over our operations. This is illegal. They tried to say that our ships were transporting illegal weapons, then the Navy is even more wrong as they are the ones who escorted our ships to shore and sea. All the weapons were also in their custody as we had no authority to take any of the weapons ashore. Then who is more at fault? The previous naval commanders all simply did their duty and did not get involved politically,” he added.

According to Senadhipathi, they had planned for over 200 naval craft to be supplied in a contract worth over $ 100 million. He said that naval commanders of several other countries were also brought to Sri Lanka in order to sell these boats to them too. However, he said that since the Navy took over the operations, none of these contracts has been carried out.

Navy Spokesman

Meanwhile, in response to Senadhipathi’s allegations, Navy Spokesman Captain Akram Alavi said that the Navy is not bound to answer any questions raised by private parties such as the Chairman of Avant Garde Maritime Services because the Navy has its own hierarchy, starting from the President who is the Commander in Chief, the State Minister, MOD, and the three commanders etc.

“So, the Navy is not bound to answer any of the queries that he raises. He can say anything he wants. If Senadhipathi has signed any agreement or whatever with the parties concerned, he should publish it. We have heard of such an agreement, but we have not seen it. If he also claims that the Navy has approved his project then he should publish the approval where the Navy Commander has signed it.”

“In the meantime, he has no authority to sign any agreement for any defence item that is owned by the Navy, he being a private party. The Navy signed an MOU first with the Nigerian authorities early this year, which is like an agreement to sell excess defence articles with weapons and accessories, engines for the boats and training that is required by them. This was followed up by a government to government agreement between the Sri Lankan and Nigerian governments,” he added.

by Nirmala Kannangara

Yet another Rajapaksa follower is soon to be arrested by the Police Special Investigation Unit (SIU) for allegedly cheating an Australian national of more than Rs. 1,000 million.

The long delay at the Attorney General’s (AG) Department over the past few months has prevented the SIU from arresting the ever-pontificating leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya and Colombo District UPFA MP, Udaya Prabath Gammanpila for allegedly using a fraudulent power of attorney to sell 4.1 million shares of Pan Asia Bank and later other assets in Sri Lanka which belonged to Brian Shaddick of Western Australia.

The SIU had questioned Gammanpila and those who aided and abetted him in these frauds and also the two parties that purchased Shaddick’s Pan Asia Bank shares. When the power of attorney was sent to the Examiner of Questioned Documents (EQD) by the SIU, to ascertain the authenticity of Shaddick and his wife Janet’s signatures, it was revealed that Janet Shaddick’s signature had been forged in the power of attorney document and Brian Shaddick’s signature had been cut and pasted.

The mass-scale frauds

The mass-scale frauds committed by Gammanpila are now unfolding and astonishing revelations have now surfaced of how he swindled Shaddick’s wealth together with one Sydney Jayasinghe who happened to be a Director at Pan Asia bank when the illegal share transaction was performed.

Gammanpila began working for Shaddick at his Colombo Scrap Metal Company which later became the Metal Recyclers Colombo as its Assistant General Manager (AGM), and was able to win his heart and established himself as a confidante of Shaddick, and became its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). It is from this point that Gammanpila allegedly began swindling Shaddick’s wealth.

Speaking to The Sunday Leader from Australia, Brian Shaddick explained how he came to Sri Lanka to invest in the scrap metal industry and started his first business venture, the Colombo Scrap Metal Company, which was a BOI project.

Lasitha Perera who holds the power of attorney for Brian Shaddick’s local affairs meanwhile explained how Shaddick got Sydney Jayasinghe involved in his businesses through a local employee at the Australian High Commission in Colombo.

“When Shaddick first came to Sri Lanka, one Eeriyagama, who was working at the Australian High Commission, had introduced him to Sydney Jayasinghe. Since a foreigner cannot start a business in Sri Lanka without a Sri Lankan investment, Shaddick wanted Jayasinghe to become his partner in his business ventures but made the full investment without any financial support from Jayasinghe. However Jaysinghe got 50 per cent ownership of this company for being Shaddick’s local partner,” Perera said.

According to Perera, Sydney Jayasinghe became Shaddick’s local partner not only at Colombo Scrap Metal Company but also at Ceylon Tea Garden.

“At this time, Jayasinghe had requested Shaddick to help him to educate his two sons as he did not have the funds to spend on their higher education. Shaddick had agreed to help Jayasinghe to educate his sons, and they were taken to Australia and enrolled at Monash University out of his own money. It was at this point that Jayasinghe’s son Muditha and Udaya Gammanpila who too was studying at Monash University, became good friends. After returning from Monash, Muditha introduced Gammanpila to his father Sydney Jayasinghe and he was offered a job at Shaddick’s company. That was how Shaddick met Gammanpila,” Perera said.   Since Metal Recyclers Colombo became a thriving company, it was listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange in 1995 and issuing its shares to the public, the company earned Rs. 460 million.

In order to invest more in Sri Lanka as his businesses were booming, Shaddick had purchased 4.1 million Pan Asia Bank shares to the value of Rs. 110 million. Knowing well that Shaddick had purchased shares from Pan Asia Bank and also had Rs. 460 million in bank accounts from selling Metal Recyclers Colombo shares and also had other assets worth several hundreds of millions of rupees, Gammanpila had told Shaddick that Sydney Jayasinghe’s son Muditha had a plan to murder him and that he should leave the country at the earliest if he wanted to save his life.

According to Shaddick, he had no other option but to leave the country immediately, leaving behind all his businesses in the hands of Gammanpila.

It was only after this that Gammanpila with the help of Sydney Jayasinghe, swindled Shaddick. It was only in 2004, seven years after leaving Sri Lankan shores that Shaddick discovered that his Pan Asia Bank shares had been sold to two companies.“Although Shaddick was in Australia, he had been in contact with the Pan Asia Bank from the time he left Sri Lanka in May 1997. After seeing a Pan Asia Bank advertisement issuing shares, Shaddick had decided to sell his 4.1 million shares and had spoken to the company secretary in 2004. He was then informed that all his shares had been sold. Shaddick had wanted the bank to inform him how the shares that had been bought under his company, Digital Nominee (Pvt) Ltd, had been sold without his approval. The bank had informed him that Gammanpila had sold the shares to two companies using Shaddick’s power of attorney given to Gammanpila,” Perera said.After selling the Pan Asia Bank shares, Gammanpila and Jayasinghe had shifted Metal Recyclers Colombo from Peliyagoda to Enderamulla and had later sold the Peliyagoda property with the buildings therein for Rs. 100 million.

Since Shaddick was not residing in Sri Lanka, Gammanpila as the CEO together with Jayasinghe showed the shareholders that Metal Recyclers Colombo was incurring losses and closed down the business fraudulently evading paying dividends to the shareholders. Shaddick had not been informed of the closure of the very profitable venture.

From Metal Recyclers Colombo alone, Gammanpila and Jayasinghe had allegedly windled Rs. 560 million. Later, Gammanpila and Jayasinghe had got Brian Shaddick’s name removed from the Board of Directors of Ceylon Tea Garden which too was owned by Shaddick, in order to sell the company.

“In the event a company is sold, a board resolution has to be taken. Since Shaddick would not give his permission to sell this company, Udaya Gammanpila had informed the registrar of companies that Brian Shaddick was no longer a director at Ceylon Tea Garden and requested that his name be removed from company documents. Later Gammanpila became an alternate director to Shaddick and together with the board of directors, sold the company to Metropolitan Resource Holdings,” Perera added.

Although Perera was able to find out that Brombil Tea Factory Matugama had been sold for Rs. 190 million, so far he has not been able to find out for how much the company was sold to Metropolitan Resources Holdings.

“Fifty per cent shares of Ceylon Tea Garden were owned by Shaddick and he had invested one million Australian Dollars (AUD 1 million) which is equivalent to Rs. 100 million,” Perera said.

According to Perera, 2.1 million Pan Asia Bank shares had been sold to Vanik Incorporation by Gammanpila soon after Shaddick left the country in 1997 and the rest, 2 million shares, to Dhammika Perera in 2002.

“Pan Asia Bank had accepted the fraudulent power of attorney and allegations are levelled at this bank for not revealing the scam. From the time Shaddick left Sri Lanka, he had spoken to the Pan Asia Bank Secretary, but she had never informed him of the share transaction. Sydney Jayasinghe was a director at Pan Asia and he is alleged to have helped Gammanpila to use the fraudulent power of attorney to sell the shares,” Perera alleged.

According to Perera, although Gammanpila’s involvement in these massive scams started to unfold in 2004, neither Shaddick nor he (Perera) wanted to lodge a police complaint due to the country’s prevailing security situation.

“Gammanpila was a supporter of the Rajapaksas and worked hand in glove with the then Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Neither Shaddick nor I wanted to take a risk and waited in silence. It was only during the 2015 presidential campaign that I came forward and levelled these allegations to which Gammanpila responded that I was making false allegations and that he would take legal action against me. Up to now Gammanpila has never filed a lawsuit against me nor has he sent me a letter of demand.

I want Gammanpila to come for a public debate in any place or even a radio or TV channel so I can prove what a fraudster he is,” Perera said.

After the fall of the Rajapaksa regime, Shaddick had returned to Sri Lanka on August 1, 2015 to lodge a complaint (Case No. 52/ 2015) and had left the country on August 5.

Too expensive

Meanwhile Janet Shaddick said that although they wanted to take legal action against the fraudsters they had to drop the idea since international litigation is too expensive and it was difficult to achieve a positive result.

“Udaya Gammanpila and Jagath Wijeratne met Shaddick in the airport and had driven him to the Hilton Hotel. They both worked for Shaddick. Both Udaya and Jagath had asked Shaddick to leave Sri Lanka as Sydney’s son Muditha had a contract to kill Shaddick,” Janet said.

She further said, “We never entrusted Udaya with looking after our three companies; he was employed by us before Brian left Sri Lanka, but we did believe him when he said that Brian was to be killed. We wanted him to inform us of what was going on in Sri Lanka but he never did so.

It was only after several years that we found out that Sydney and Udaya were planning to steal all our assets. All our money in Pan Asia Bank was taken by Udaya with a false power of attorney. The ‘threat’ to Brian was obviously a scam set up by these two criminals, Udaya and Sydney. Udaya is a fraudster hiding behind his religion.”

Responding to a text message, Udaya Gammanpila responded from Italy refuting the allegations levelled against him.

The text message reads, “This is an utter lie and old story for which I have repeatedly replied. I have already taken legal action against Hirunika for making this allegation. I sent a letter of demand for Rs. 1 billion to Lake House for publishing this story two days ago. I am presently in Italy. Udaya Gammanpila.”

by Ashanthi Warunasuriya

The tri-forces helping the flood victims

The deadly flood that ravaged almost all districts in the country including Colombo, Gampaha, Kilinochchi, Kalutara, Uva, Awissawella and the up-country, will go down in the history as one of the worst natural disasters this country has faced after the 1989 floods and the 2004 tsunami. After the devastation that affected both rich and poor alike, realisation dawned that there is no proper mechanism in place for Sri Lanka to manage a calamity of this magnitude.

In terms of relief, it was the general public that took the lead in providing help to those who were battered by the floods. Later, many civil society organisations and interest groups were seen working hard to rescue the people from this unexpected calamity. Ironically, the government entered the show as a latecomer. However, the effort made by the members of the  Army, Navy, Air Force and the Police in rescuing stranded people and helping displaced families must be applauded.
In the relief effort, there were many instances when the government fell into a deadlock, being unable to do what was necessary. The lack of boats is the best example. On several occasions, the Navy had to wait for orders from their senior officers to deploy their boats to rescue people. The Grama Sevakas had seek permission from the Division Secretaries to do anything. Most of the time, they were caught up in the bureaucratic red tape. Although the Prime Minister had given verbal instructions to the government officials not to be bothered by circulars, most of them did not follow these instructions fearing future repercussions.

Signs of a possible major flood surfaced almost two weeks ago. But despite the increasing water level, the government failed to take necessary steps to prepare for a disaster. As a result, when the government did enter the disaster management procedure, the water had risen up to 9 feet submerging houses completely in water. The people were stranded inside temporary huts built on bridges.

When the general public started lending a hand to their fellow citizens who were in trouble, the government once again failed in managing the aid supply in a proper manner. As a result, while some people were given more than enough food, the rest were left in starvation. There were instances where criminals had sold relief aid in the black market. There were also stories of racketeers who and transported people in lorries for money claiming that the roads were under water.

However, amidst all the evil, there were people who genuinely sacrificed their possessions for the relief effort. While some people made lucrative earnings by renting out boats for Rs. 50,000 per day, some fishermen had given out their boats free of charge; some of these were even damaged during rescue missions.

When it comes to the disaster in Aranayake, even to date, the government has failed to clearly identify areas that are prone to possible landslides. Therefore, people have been unable to make up their minds whether to stay or to leave. Thus they have made continuous requests to the government to get the Department of Geology and Mining to assess the safety of these areas. Until then, their lives are going to be uncertain.

When there was excessive food in certain parts due to mismanagement, many media institutions went on to describe it as a waste. Thus they requested the public not to send anymore food. As a result of this, in many areas, displaced persons had to go hungry with no food. The problem was later solved as the military came forward to cook meals for the victims. All these were witnessed by those who were working in the field to provide relief. But one thing has now become clear that our government does not have a proper plan or management mechanism in such a disaster.

A number of committees have already been set up to formulate policies and mechanisms for disaster management. There is also a national donor panel that is in operation. Many of these committees are headed by the President himself and many ministers and MPs are working as members in these committees. They are also aided by the UN and the Red Cross.

Accordingly, two main committees, namely the Disaster Coordinating Committee and the Emergency Response Committee, are being operated under the DMD. However, it was revealed that these committees are not meeting regularly. After the presidential election, the last committee meeting had been held about three months ago and even at that meeting, the relevant steps that need to be taken in a disaster scenario had not been properly discussed, sources say.

When Deputy Director of the DMC Pradeep Kodippili was asked for a comment regarding the matter, he said, “This is a false allegation. We have been discussing disaster preparedness all the time. Regular meetings have been held in both these committees. The Disaster Coordinating Committee meets three times a year. The Emergency Response Committee meets once in every three months. Through these committees, we are instructing all government officials from district secretaries to GS officials. It’s the President who heads these committees. The National Council meets twice a year. Apart from that, a Special Presidential Task Force has also been appointed.”

No matter what they say now, the ground reality says otherwise. In most occasions the inefficiency of government officials was quite evident.

‘We must prepare for the next disaster’

We asked Subject Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, for his opinion on the issue of disaster preparedness.

Q: The Ministry of Disaster Management had set up a committee to look into matters regarding disaster management. But since the new government came into power, this committee has not been called for a meeting. Why?

A: It’s called the Disaster Council and is headed by the President. This council only assembles to take decisions regarding policy matters. For example, upon a decision made by the Disaster Council, we have formulated a national policy for disaster management. It was formed in 2014. At the moment what is required is the joint operation of all government ministries and other institutes in preparing the general public to face the next disaster. That is the only thing we can do now.

Q: How is this policy put in to operation?

A: It is being operated from several fronts. According to the Disaster Management Act we must take into consideration the issues like multiple disasters, natural disasters, man-made disasters, transparency, accountability and collective responsibility. Accordingly, the relevant ministry must take charge in the right field. We have already signed an agreement on disaster management. Preparedness is one of the key elements in this treaty. Accordingly we must prepare a programme and must present it annually to the UN; for that we are receiving the assistance of the Japanese government. In the end, we must take this message to the public.

Q: What are the other ministries involved in this national programme?

A: The Megapolis Ministry, Housing Ministry, Public Administration Ministry Mahaveli and Environment Ministries, and the National Planning Division are the key participants in this programme. We only perform an advisory role.

So far the government has incurred a loss of over 50 billion rupees from the devastation that has been caused to the areas near the Kelani river banks. The loss incurred by the residents in the area cannot be calculated into a value.

‘Govt should follow a proper strategy’

Expressing his views regarding the level of disaster, the Director of the Coast Guard Department, Gamini Hewage, said that due to heavy urbanization in the Kelani River Valley, cleaning the mouth of the river has become almost impossible.

Further, due to the 200 mm rains that had fallen in the Kelani River area, the 150 mm rains that had fallen in Colombo had aggravated the water levels in the river. Therefore, instead of directing the drains in Colombo into the Kelani River, the Irrigation Department had proposed a plan to remove the rain water collected in Colombo by using pumps.  In 1989 when the last major flood was reported in the Kelani Valley, the per capita income of Sri Lanka was below 50 dollars. Today it has increased eightfold.

But still the level of damage caused remains the same. It is problematic as to why we are still unable to prevent these disasters with the help of scientific advancement the country has achieved.

If the government had followed a proper strategy, then the people would not be blaming them.

The Western Province provides more than 50 per cent of the country’s entire GDP. Hence, it is now evident that along with a new plan for disaster management, the country is also in need of a proper plan to protect its vital economic zones.

In 2012, the World Bank had agreed to provide Sri Lanka the funds required to install a proper drainage system in the Greater Colombo areas. According to World Bank reports, this allocation amounts to 213 million US dollars. But still the project has not been concluded.

At present, around 35 per cent of the entire population of Sri Lanka has been affected by this natural disaster. In a few days this is bound to be forgotten.

However, we would like to emphasize the importance of swift action and proper planning that could save valuable lives and property in the future.

‘We are helping rebuild lives’

Ranjith Madduma Bandara, Minister for Public Administration

These allegations about the government failing to do the job are made by the Joint Opposition who now lacking slogans. We have faced the gravest natural disaster since 1989. The Prime Minister clearly instructed the officials not to make circulars obstacle in providing relief. The government deployed the military and all other government workers to provide the best possible relief aid to the affected.

I’m not aware of any committee or a council that is vested with this duty. But I can assure you that the Ministry of Disaster Management has executed its duty well. We are helping the people to rebuild their lives and also to receive compensation for their losses. These have been discussed in the Cabinet. The government is providing aid without any limitations. In a natural disaster, problems and mistakes are unavoidable. But we are trying our best to keep these technical problems at a minimum.

 

‘We cannot ignore social duty’

S.B. Dissanayake, Minister of Social Welfare and Social Empowerment

We have carried out the relief drive with the assistance of grassroots level officials such as the Samurdhi Bank, Samurdhi officials, and GS officials who are closer to the people. I believe that we have done our best in this time of need. Many foreign countries including the USA, Israel, Japan, India, and Pakistan have supported us by sending aid. So we have initiated a proper procedure to distribute this aid to the needy people. Under the Samurdhi scheme, we are looking after both Samurdhi beneficiaries and non members alike. In the near future, we are planning to execute various programmes to empower the displaced people such as providing infrastructure, education, health facilities and housing.

The Presidential Task Force is looking into the needs of everyone from the farmer to the businessman. Primarily we are not responsible for disaster management. But we cannot ignore a social duty. If we are asked to participate, we are not going to hold back.

Mechanism of Disaster Management

According to the mobility system of the Disaster Management Centre, anyone can report a natural disaster to the toll free number 117. They could also inform the nearest police station or the District Secretariat office. The military teams assigned to these districts are then mobilized to counter the threat. If the situation is serious, then more military units are sent to aid. In instances like a tsunami, early warnings are also being carried out.

Through the District Secretaries, the assistant directors are vested with the responsibility of briefing ground level officials such as GS officials and Samurdhi officials. Apart from this, personnel attached to the National Disaster Services Center are also involved with post-disaster activities. Accordingly, the duties are divided among the officials from senior to lower ranks. All activities related to distribution and collection of relief aid are also placed under this section.

 

‘Compelled to deviate’

Responding to the allegations regarding the inefficiency of this system in the recent natural disaster, the Director General of the DMC, Mr. Mark said, “In an emergency, following a plan is not that easy. It always depends on the situation that we are faced with. So on some occasions we are compelled to deviate from the original plan. According to our financial status, sometime we cannot find enough vehicles or helicopters to fulfill our need.

There were problems in rescuing people and then taking them to safe places. Although there were problems in Colombo regarding safety, we were able to convert schools in to temporary camps. But still this is not enough. This is a serious issue. All other government institutions should help us in this matter. Otherwise this is not possible.”

by Camelia Nathaniel and Ashanthi Warunasuriya

A high-ranking official at the FCID who wished to remain anonymous told The Sunday Leader that a joint investigation was underway by the FCID and the Ukrainian authorities over the alleged arms supply Weeratunga had been engaged in while in that country.

“Although there is no formal complaint that has been lodged against Weeratunga, we strongly suspect that he may have had a hand in supplying arms to the Ukrainian rebel group. But unfortunately our involvement in this issue has to be limited as there is no formal complaint that has been made with regard to this issue.

Moreover the Ukrainian government too is reluctant to pursue the matter. Therefore since the arms deal was done in Ukraine, it is beyond our jurisdiction. Weeratunga is said to have supplied Ukrainian manufactured weapons to the Ukrainian guerrillas, and since it has nothing to do with Sri Lanka, we are unable to take any drastic action against him.

However if a formal complaint regarding this matter is lodged with us, then we can pursue the investigation forcefully,” the FCID official said.

However, although the Sri Lankan authorities may not have jurisdiction over his supply of arms to the Ukrainian guerrillas, that fact is that Weeratunga had sold or helped transfer weapons to Ukrainian rebels using his diplomatic identity as a cover.

Udayanga Weeratunga

According to the FCID it was also revealed that Udayanga Weeratunga holds a Ukrainian passport. Further, the FCID stated that they will carry on the investigations against Weeratunga and once sufficient evidence is gathered, they will be in a position to take action against him.

Weeratunga is reported to have operated a small Sri Lankan restaurant in Kiev, the Ukranian capital, called Club Lanka. During the previous Rajapaksa regime, Weeratunga who is said to be a relative of Rajapaksa, was appointed as the Sri Lanka Envoy to Moscow.

However, Weeratunga was involved in many illegal deals while serving in his diplomatic capacity and was removed from his post after having enjoyed his diplomatic post for nine years, when the Good Governance regime took over in January 2015. Thereafter, in spite of the FCID investigations into his role in the Sri Lanka Air Force purchase of MiG-27s from Ukraine, Weeratunga has avoided returning to Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Leader also contacted the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maheshini Colonne regarding Weeratunga’s current status and to clarify if he had returned his diplomatic passport. Colonne confirmed that he had not handed in his diplomatic passport as yet. As far as the investigation on the arms deal was concerned, she said that it was beyond the purview of the Foreign Ministry and said that it would be handled by the FCID.

Meanwhile Weeratunga had surfaced in Thailand during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s visit to Bangkok and Udon Thani in Thailand. How Weeratunga had entered Thailand is another mystery. According to reports, the Thai authorities had no record of Weeratunga’s visit.

Although Sri Lanka’s Department of Immigration cancelled his diplomatic passport, it has been reported that he was still using it. While the Sri Lankan government had cancelled his diplomatic passport, it was a possibility that Weeratunga, who is said to hold a Ukrainian passport, may have entered Thailand using that.

When The Sunday Leader asked Colonne if the Foreign Ministry would take up the issue where Weeratunga had met with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Minister G. L. Pieris during their visit to Thailand, she said, “It’s beyond this ministry’s purview and we can’t initiate investigations of that nature.”

Therefore, she said that if at all someone wishes to record a statement from the former president regarding his meeting with Udayanga Weeratunga, then that would be the relevant investigative arm of the CID.

With regard to the removal of Weeratunga from his position as ambassador, Kolonne said he had been removed from his post but had not returned to the country. She added that all political appointees to diplomatic posts during the previous regime have been sent letters removing them from those positions. However, she said that there was no compulsion for them to return to Sri Lanka.

However, issuing a press release, Udayanga Weeratunga has denied all allegations levelled against him, charging that these are lies fabricated by the good governance regime.Since the end of his tenure in January 2015, the diplomatic passport used by Udayanga Weeratunga while he was working as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia has now been converted in to a normal passport. However, according to sources, although he had applied for a regular passport, before it was issued, he had departed to another country.

By law,  Weeratunga is no longer permitted to use his diplomatic passport. But before the Foreign Ministry could declare so, Weeratunga has made his move. However, his normal passport has been accepted by his wife on his behalf.

According to reports, Weeratunga has left Russia to go to Ukraine in order to pursue a post-graduate degree. For that, he had been granted a visa from Ukraine.

Up until recent times there has been no extradition agreement between Ukraine and Sri Lanka. However, last month the government of Sri Lanka initiated steps to enter into such an agreement with the government of Ukraine.   Accordingly, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakse says that Sri Lanka is expecting to expand the extradition agreements to more countries.

As per these agreements the countries who have signed them are bound to share information and wanted personnel.  So far the Ukraine government had not cooperated with Sri Lanka due to the absence of such an agreement. But the situation is soon to be changed, sources further said.

However, the CID says that a case has not been filed regarding the passport issue of Udayanga Weeratunga and those investigations are only being carried out regarding the alleged murder accusation that has been levelled against him.

But since there is a delay in receiving information from relevant authorities, the investigations have ground to a halt. Furthermore, a court order has not yet been obtained to take him into custody. Hence his name is not yet in the black list.

Weeratunga who resurfaced during former President Rajapaksa’s recent visit to Thailand was once again seen during Rajapaksa’s Uganda tour. A photography enthusiast, Weeratunga is currently acting as a coordinator of Rajapaksa’s foreign funding organisation.

Agreement to deal with criminal matters

The government is making an attempt to arrest Sri Lanka’s former Ambassador to Russia, Udayanga Weeratunga, through an agreement with Ukraine, sources said.

According to government sources, the path has been set for the police to seek the arrest and deportation of Udayanga Weeratunga from Ukraine.

Weeratunga is wanted in Sri Lanka to be investigated over several allegations, including claims that he had armed Ukraine rebels when he was the Ambassador to Russia and Mahinda Rajapaksa was the President of Sri Lanka. Udayanga Weeratunga has confirmed on several occasions that he is living in Ukraine and refused to return to Sri Lanka to be investigated over the allegations.Last week Cabinet approval was obtained for Sri Lanka and Ukraine to reach an agreement on dealing with criminal matters.

The government said international mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is becoming increasingly important to combat such crimes. The Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act No. 25 of 2002 provides for the provisions of assistance by Sri Lanka to foreign countries and regarding criminal matters in those countries and for obtaining similar assistance from such countries to Sri Lanka.

A proposal made by the Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakse to enter into an agreement with Ukraine to improve the effectiveness of law enforcement of both parties in the investigation, prosecution and prevention of crime and confiscation of criminal proceeds, was approved by the Cabinet last week.

When contacted by The Sunday Leader, Minister Rajapakse said arresting Udayanga Weeratunga is a police matter and the government, for its part, is looking to reach an agreement with Ukraine and other countries to work together to deal with crime.

“He cannot use the DPL passport”

Yogachandra, Deputy Controller, Immigration, Overseas Branch

“Udayanga Weeratunga had applied for a normal passport without surrendering his diplomatic passport to us. We got to know about this later. Hence he has applied for a normal passport while holding status as the ambassador. However, once the normal passport is issued the DLP passport is automatically cancelled. That is done by the system.

The Foreign Ministry had informed us that he could not use the DPL passport and that we have to nab him if he has used it. We have now issued him a normal passport. Hence he cannot use the DPL passport from March 6, 2015.

Still there is no ban against him in our system. As a normal citizen he can come to Sri Lanka. After 2015 he has not returned to Sri Lanka.”

“No ban against him”

 

Lakshan De Soysa, Media Spokesman

He is now using the normal passport. He can come to Sri Lanka any time he wishes. There is no ban against him that we know of.

by Ifham Nizam

Meethotamulla garbage mountain

The living standards of the residents in the vicinity of the newly formed garbage mountain in Meethotamulla was further compromised by the recent floods which also swept tonnes of garbage into their homes.

The worst part according to residents is that even after the flood waters had ebbed,  a foul ordour has permeated the air and the thick black  component of the garbage mountain  has clung to a number of houses, giving a dirty, black appearance.

Residents expressed disgust at successive governments saying that they elected President Maithripala Sirisena to bring some relief to their plight but now the situation is going from bad to worse.

Until 2008, Pottuvilkumbara in Meethotamulla was an area which was used to dump garbage from Kolonnawa and Mulleriyawa. However, a court order was issued to temporarily dump garbage from Blomendhal in Kotahena when the infamous mountain was set alight. This led to not only garbage from Colombo but the  Gamapaha District too being dumped in Meethotamulla, according to residents.

Now the Meethotamulla garbage mountain soars some 200 meters high and more than 800 tonnes of garbage is dumped per day.

It has been reported that residents suffer from various complaints. Of more than 1,000 people tested, some 60 per cent were suffering from medical complications, according to the Government Medical Officers’ Association.

“Our plight has gone from bad to worse, especially after the floods. To make matters worse we have been told that there is a recent court order to allocate further land in the vicinity to dump more waste,” a resident said.

When contacted, Megapolis and Western Development Ministry Secretary, Nihal Rupasinghe told The Sunday Leader that under the short-term solution, the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) and the Western Provincial Council are now taking action in this regard. However, he said that they are in the process of working on a long-term solution to put an end to the problem. The Western Provincial Council and CMC are working on a management plan at present.

He warned that they were aware that the situation could be much worse when the south east monsoon arrives. Like in Karadiyana and Gampaha, foreign experts would be called upon to assist in Meethotamulla too, he noted.

With a number of well-known companies particularly from the United States, Japan, China, Singapore and Korea coming forward to tackle the garbage menace in Sri Lanka, he expressed confidence that the government is on the right track to put an end to the growing problem in the city.

Rupasinghe assured that the country would not have any garbage issues in two and half year’s time. He told The Sunday Leader that 119 bidders (26 are foreign) have submitted proposals and suggestions with regard to recycling garbage in Colombo. He said they would evaluate recommendations and proposals and select two bidders for the Gampaha and Karadiyana sanitary sites.

According to Rupasinghe the day-to-day solid waste collection estimated to be around 700 Mt will be transferred in sealed containers by train twice a day.

“The garbage will be used to fill up craters spanning an area of three kilometers following the removal of limestone used for a private cement company,” he said.

He also said that earlier there were plans to dump the garbage in the Puttalam district in an area bordering the Wilpattu National park. However, the decision was reversed due to pressure from the environmental lobby on the adverse environmental impact.

It is also understood that a railway loop laid between Meethotumulla and Orugodawatte will be linked to the main line. Twenty-six sealed containers (20ft each) will be imported to transfer the garbage. The train will do two trips a day with 13 containers being transported at a time.

Before the garbage is transported it will be compressed using a machine which will be installed in Meethotumulla. However, the existing garbage dump at Meethotumulla will not be removed but will be left to decompose and thereafter a vehicle park will be set up there.

In a related development, a committee looking into the garbage issue at Karadiyana, Kesbewa has proposed the setting up of a recycling plant either in the same location or in Muthurajawela. Some 109 companies have already put in bids for the project.

Rupasinghe also warned that if the pressing garbage issues are not resolved soon the Kelani River and the Bolgoda Lake water bodies will become polluted.

Meanwhile, civic-minded organisations clearly indicated that they would oppose a move, as they did last year, to dump the garbage to a location in Arawakadu close to the Wilpattu National Park.

Scientists, experts, environmentalists and concerned citizen groups stressed that they would join hands to take legal action against the move to dump garbage at a site in Puttalam, unless it was done taking into consideration an EIA report.

Paleontologist cum researcher, Kelum Manamendraarachchi told The Sunday Leader that the sanitary landfill was earlier planned at a place full of miocene fossils dating back some 23 million years.

He said that the cement industry was already exploiting the fossil bed. “It is high time that civic-minded officials rise up against it considering the future generations and those eager to study miocene beds,” he added. Experts fear that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports may go to the dustbin. Garbage disposal has been a major headache especially for Colombo which generates more than 1,200 metric tonnes of rubbish daily.

The compacted waste will be packed in 20-foot containers and sent by train to the landfill site at Aruwakkalu, just North of Puttalam, about 170 kilometres away from Colombo. The 30-hectare Aruwakkadu site, leased out to Holcim Cement Company, has many abandoned quarries, from where limestone was extracted by the Cement Corporation some 20 years ago.

The site will be designed to absorb up to 4,700,000 cubic meters of garbage for 10 years in two phases. The site is within the one mile buffer zone of the Wilpattu National Park – a fact that has been highlighted in the EIA report.

The earlier document points out that the site is frequented by several wild animals, including elephants and warns that once the garbage comes, it can attract more elephants to the area, aggravating the human-elephant conflict, especially in the fishing village near the site. The first EIA report recommends several steps to prevent elephants and other animals from coming to the area. They include erecting an electric fence and closing up the landfill on a daily basis after the garbage has been deposited.

Environmentalists also express concern over the impact of the project on the Kala Oya/Lunu Oya Estuary which supports the largest, richest, and the most pristine mangrove patch in Sri Lanka and is also just 200 m northeast of the site.

Hemantha Withanage of the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) says the project is a crime and not worth the cost. He says the solution lies not in dumping garbage at landfill sites but addressing the root cause.

“Go for a zero-waste model promoting recycling. It will be a sustainable solution. Sometimes drastic measures such as banning polythene and plastic might have to be taken – but it will help in the long run,” he said.

“We have no garbage management. The cabinet has taken a decision to transport all metropolitan garbage to Aruwakkarau, a lime quarry located near the Wilpattu National Park which is home to elephants and which has been identified as a biological hotspot. Steps should be taken to make the nation healthier,” he says adding advisors are making it hard for President Sirisena to abide by his words of using his remaining executive powers to save the natural beauty of the country,

The USD 107 million landfill site project was approved by the previous government after a cabinet paper was submitted by the then President Mahinda Rajapakse in his capacity as Minister of Urban Development.

Many experts recognise that the solid waste problem requires an urgent solution but it does not mean creating another environmental crisis. Some experts suggest that to minimise the negative impacts, the solid waste should be dumped in the abandoned Holcim pits which are more towards the interior of Aruwakkadu. But the company is not in favour of this suggestion, environmentalists say. This is why the present site has been selected for the project even though its negative impacts are apparent.

When contacted, a Holcim spokesperson said the quarry was being blasted earlier with permission from the Geological and Mines Bureau and the company was following standard protocols. They said the landfill was a government project and they had nothing to do with it.

However, the project needs approval not only from the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) but also from the North Western Provincial Council and the Wildlife Conservation Department  as the site is located within the buffer zone of a national park.

The earlier site known as ‘Wedi Pitiya’ is particularly unique as it is in its vicinity that P. E. P. Deraniyagala documented nearly 40 species of pre-historic invertebrates and marine vertebrates such as dugongs, dolphins, whales and sea turtles from their bony remains belonging to the miocene era.

This indicates that ‘Wedi Pitiya’ could in fact be a deeper zone of the sea.

By Third Eye

Sooriyawewa stadium

A recent report submitted to the Sports Ministry about Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had made several startling revelations.SLC had no intention to construct an International Cricket Stadium in Sooriyawewa but changed  it’s mind after SLC Interim Committee Members headed by D.S. De Silva and Secretary Nishantha Ranatunge met former President and current Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa. The report also notes that in certain instances there were no evidence of adherence to the due process and no IPC were available for the final bill of the stadium amounting to Rs. 2.2 billion.

SLC did not have any intention to construct an International cricket stadium in Sooriyawewa. However consequent to the meeting held on May five, 2009 where SLC Interim Committee Members headed by D.S. De Silva and Secretary Nishantha Ranatunge met the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sooriyawewa project was discussed and it was noted that SLC will fund the total cost of the project for the ground amounting to Rs. 100 million approximately which will also consist of levelling the earth around the ground which will cost Rs. 30 million. It was also noted that the intention was to complete the levelling of earth by December 2009 enabling SLC to conduct domestic matches during January to March 2010 prior to ICC CWC 2011, in order to fulfill one of the ICC requirements in addition to facilitate ICC to inspect the ground.

MOU signed with SLPA

Accordingly, a budgetary allocation of Rs. 100 million comprising Rs. 30 million to be incurred in June 2009 with the balance Rs. 70 million by December 2009 had been made and such revised Budget 2009 was approved by the then Interim Committee on May 11, 2009.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in August 2009 with Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) in order to develop Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium (MRICS) in Sooriyawewa. Accordingly SLPA agreed to construct the main pavilion building, other buildings, roads and parking areas, gates and fences, side screens, scoreboard and to provide infrastructure for other utilities.

The MOU stated that construction work will be commenced 14 days after the receipt of the detailed designs that SLC shall pay an advance payment of Rs. 200 Million within 14 days of signing of the MOU and that SLPA will prepare the Contract documents within 03 months from the receipt of the detailed designs. However, the MOU did not specify the value of the Contract. The MOU also stated that same will be in force until the signing of the formal Contract Agreement. However, no Contract Agreement has been signed between the said parties todate.

The Cabinet of Ministers granted the approval on June 16, 2009 to “design and construct the project” through SLPA and accordingly, awarded the contract to China Harbour Engineering Company Limited (CHECL) as a variation order to Hambantota Port Development Project.

A budgetary allocation of Rs.3.3 billion was made as capital expenditure on upgrading/construction of the 3 stadia for hosting CWC 2011 in Budget 2010 which was approved by Interim Committee on March 26, 2010. The amount of Rs.3.3 billion comprised Rs. 1.3 billion for RPICS and Rs. one billion each for PICS and MRICS respectively.

Even though the project value was not expressed in the MOU, SLC indicated that the commitment towards the project would be limited to a maximum of Rs. 1.2 billion and payments were made accordingly.

SLC received the BOQ approved by the Ministry of Construction and Engineering Services on October 25, 2010. The BOQ was approved with emphasis on the approval of the rates but not the accuracy of the quantities referred to, recommended strict adherence to measure & pay basis, and observed the rates as per BOQ had been marked up by 27%.

Towards the end of the project on February nine, 2011, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the estimated cost of the project as Rs.2.45 billion, in addition to the cost of the land. SLC used third party contractors to complete the project in order to meet project deadlines. SLC received the final claim dated April 25, 2011 for Rs. 3.76 billion on July 26, 2011. The final claim included Rs 582 Million as price adjustments and additional work performed without consulting SLC. It was also noted that certain work as per MOU were not delivered by SLPA in the absence of a formal contract.

As per the internal process, Interim Payment Certificates (IPC) should be signed off by Quantity Surveyor, Project Engineer, Chief Engineer and the C.E.O. It appears in certain instances there were no evidence of adherence to the due process and no IPC were available for the final bill amounting to Rs.2.2 billion.

SLC incorporated the cost of Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium as Rs. 4.282 billion into the financials as of June 30, 2011. This included Rs.3.368 billion. and Rs. 914 million for the work performed by SLPA and other contractors respectively and accrued under ‘Other Venue Creditors’. The existing Interim Committee headed by D.S. De Silva was dissolved and a new Interim Committee was appointed on July one, 201 1.

As per the Valuation Report received on March four,2015 from the Government Valuer, the value of the property was estimated at Rs.912 million. Hence SLC has requested certain clarifications from the Government Valuer and are awaiting same.

SLPA meanwhile had forwarded a letter dated January 27, 2016 to SLC enclosing letter dated December 22, 2015 from CH addressed to Minister of Ports & Shipping, copied to SLPA claiming a further amount of Rs.5.027 billion which includes interest on outstandings upto July 30, 2015 of Rs. 2.07 billion.

SLC did not have the independence of constructing a new stadium at their preferred location.

The final claim made included Price Escalation of Rs. 582 million without the consent of SLC, Rs.603 million as additional civil works where SLC had not been informed of such additional work and had not given the approval for such work. SLC did not have an, independent Project Manager to oversee such work, the Project Manager being SLPA.

SLC had also obtained the services from other contractors amounting to Rs.330 million, which had been duplicated in the above claim.

Based on the above and since SLC had indicated that the commitment towards the project would be limited to a maximum of Rs. 1.2 billion, the Executive Committee are of the view that no further amounts are payable and all claims will be disputed.

• Meal allowance controversy leaves a bad taste as SLA Flight Attendants Union takes on management

by Nirmala Kannangara

As a result of the demands made by the Flight Attendants Union (FAU) of SriLankan Airlines (SLA) to contribute EPF and ETF on their meal allowances as per labour laws, the SLA management has disregarded FAU as a legitimate body.

As defined in Section 44 of EPF Act No. 15 of 1958 and Section 16 of ETF Act No. 46 of 1980, EPF and ETF shall be paid not only on the basic salary but on total earnings. Hence over the past years, SriLankan Airlines knowingly or un-knowingly had not paid EPF and ETF on the meal allowance for cabin crew and pilots. Although the FAU in the early 2000s had received the Labour Department’s pronouncement that EPF and ETF should be paid on allowances, as an allowance is considered as an earning, the then FAU had not demanded of the respective managements that EPF and ETF be contributed on the meal allowance until the present executive committee members made the request.

In order to avoid the FAU demand, the management of SriLankan Airlines in an unorthodox manner refused to accept the legitimacy of the executive committee of the FAU who were elected uncontested in December 2015, claiming that unless they are elected through a secret ballot the management will not deal with the FAU in its capacity as a bargaining agent and would thus disregard their demands.

Although it is clear that there wasn’t any necessity for the FAU to hold an election when there were no parties to contest but only one set of nominations received, it is alleged that the present management of SriLankan Airlines want to avoid the demand and have no knowledge in administration.

“There was only one nominee for each post and other than electing them to the posts uncontested, we cannot understand why the management is still asking us to come through a secret ballot which is an unnecessary exercise. If the present management cannot understand the difference between electing members in a secret ballot and electing members uncontested, their administration ability is questionable,” FAU sources said on condition of anonymity.

The sitting FAU office bearers were elected uncontested on December 18, 2015 without a ballot being held as all those who were to contest in the election withdrew their nominations prior to the Annual General Meeting (AGM).  The three teams that withdrew their submissions harmoniously, got together and decided to go as one team under the Founding President FAU, Adrian Cramer. This was officially conveyed to the sitting President FAU, Sidath Dedigama who was the authorising officer to hold the union election. As a result of not accepting the present FAU as a legitimate body, the FAU had made a request to the Labour Department for their intervention over the FAU’s legitimacy. Hence, in a letter dated May 29, 2016, Commissioner of Labour (Labour Affairs) H. K. K. A. Jayasundera instructed the chief executive officer of SriLankan Airlines not to reject a dialogue with the duly elected FAU who have the majority support of the members. The labour commissioner also said legal action could be taken against the employer in the event they fail to adhere to labour laws. “The FAU has been in operation for 19 years and has held 14 AGMs to elect office bearers. Of these 14 times, office bearers had been selected through a ballot only on two occasions, in 2007 and 2013.  Although this was not an issue for the then managements, the present management under the good governance administration wants to expel us and get flight attendants who are in support of them to be elected to avoid trade union demands on EPF and ETF contribution on the meal allowances,” sources said. “No sooner we took office, we informed Pradeep Kekulawala, Head of Human Resources, of the formation of the new FAU executive committee for the year 2015/2016. Whilst congratulating the office bearers, Kekulawala wrote back to the FAU that he looked forward to a cordial relationship with the new office bearers. Having stated that in an e-mail addressed to the office bearers on December 19, 2015, he wrote back to the general secretary FAU on February 3, 2016 seeking details of the AGM to establish the date, venue time, number of attendees at the time of the selection and whether an election was held. By this time we had demanded that management contribute EPF and ETF on the allowances,” sources added. This newspaper is in receipt of letters sent by the Employees Provident Fund and the Employees Trust Fund to the FAU confirming that EPF and ETF should be paid on meal allowances as well although the present management is now trying to evade the labour law. “When our ex co informed the Labour Department that EPF and ETF are not paid on the meal allowances, they held two rounds of inquiries and wanted a management representative to attend. Surprisingly no one from the management was represented at these inquires. The third inquiry will be held tomorrow (06) and we hope that an official will represent the management at this hearing. In the event of their absence once again, we will request that Labour Department officials take action against the airline management,” sources claimed.

The sources further said Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Capt. Suren Ratwatte wanted the FAU to forego the annual increments due this month.

“According to the Collective Bargaining Agreement signed between the FAU and the airline management, once in three years the FAU discuss remuneration packages and other privileges of FAU members which benefits both FAU and management. When we discussed our salary increment this month with CEO Ratwatte, he wanted us to forego the increment this year claiming that the company is facing a financial crisis. We are not in agreement with this as this situation erupted not because of the employees but because of the management,” sources added. According to the sources, the management is now targeting the flight attendants by not extending their contracts claiming that there is excess staff. Meanwhile there is talk that Mihin Lanka will be closed down by October this year and in such an event Mihin cabin crew and pilots will be absorbed into SLA for a lower remuneration.

“If there is an excess of staff, why did they advertise calling applications for management trainees? Since we have become a threat to them, the management has taken a decision without consulting the FAU to take the lay-overs off and force us to return without a break. Once they force the cabin crew to return on the same flight without a break, we will be deprived of our allowances. We depend on the allowances and not on the basic salary as our salaries are extremely low. Although the management is planning to introduce this system from end of this month, they did not have a dialogue with the FAU before taking this decision. This is illegal. According to clause 17 of the Collective Agreement 2014-2017, the management cannot take a decision without discussing it with us and without our agreement,” sources alleged.

Clause 17 of the Collective Agreement 2014-2017 under the heading Flight Time Limitation and Roster, says, ‘As per the current practices which will remain until the roster guideline/ operators scheme is negotiated/ finalised and approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka’.

“Since the SriLankan Management is going to violate this clause we brought this up with Labour Department officials last month seeking their intervention. The present management is violating labour laws as if they are above the law of this country.

SriLankan Airlines is a national asset and a money-spinning institution but because of the appointment of a board of directors who don’t have any knowledge in civil aviation and how to run a fleet of aircraft, the company has now become a cash-strapped institution.

Although Harry Jayawardena too did not have any knowledge of civil aviation, he learnt the subject perfectly and was the only board member we ever had in the recent past that could take the airline to greater heights,” sources claimed.

It is learnt that the FAU had consulted Attorney/Barrister-at-Law Chrishmal Warnasuriya on the matter who had said that in terms of Section 6(a) of the Constitution, only one nominee was available for each post and therefore electing un-contested is nothing irregular in an uncontested election because if no one stands to compete with a nominee, the holding of polls become redundant and an unnecessary exercise.

According to Warnasuriya, since due notice of the AGM had been given in terms of Section 8 (c) of the Constitution and that no member had raised any issue with regard to the non-holding of a poll or the nominations under Section 8 (e) or (f) of the Constitution, there is no opportunity for anyone to question the validity of an election that they have agreed and accepted.

Furthermore, Section 12 (a) and (c) deals with the nominations received by the secretary and the electing of the executive committee. As there was only one set of nominations received for each post, the committee holding the elections have decided to declare those nominees elected uncontested. Therefore in terms of Section 12 (a) ‘an election’ had been held and the nominees declared elected.

When The Sunday Leader contacted CEO Capt. Suren Ratwatte to find out why the airline is evading paying EPF and ETF as per Labour Department directions and why the airline management is not ready to accept FAU as a legitimate trade union, Ratwatte said he was overseas and did not have time to talk as he was attending a conference.

Hence a text message was sent to Ratwatte requesting his e-mail address in order to forward the allegations levelled against the Sri Lankan management seeking a comment. However at the time this newspaper went to press, Ratwatte had neither returned the call to clarify their side of the story nor sent us his e-mail address.

• Cabinet approval granted to Elekta whose quoted price was 50 percent more than the market price

by Hafsa Sabry

It has been revealed how the former regime had given this contract to Elekta which is the UK branch of a Swedish company. The local distributor is Siyol International (Pvt) Limited. Despite the fact that there were many reputed international manufacturers of medical linear accelerators, cabinet approval had been granted to the Elekta quoted price which was said to be 50 percent more than the market price.

It is alleged that the project directors had misused the tender deal for their personal benefit.

The total cost of this project is Rs. 7.7 billion of which Rs. 5.9 billion is for the supply and installation of the equipment, Rs.1.8 billion for the construction of radiation protective bunkers and associated buildings, 14 triple, dual and fixed energy linear accelerators, eight CT simulators and nine brachy therapy units to be installed in the ten identified oncology centres.

Radiation Machines

Health Ministry sources who wished to remain anonymous accused two main individuals, director of the project Asoka Jayawardane and Engineer S. A. J. Karunatilake of the Bio Medical Engineering Division of the Health Ministry of direct involvement in this scam.

According to government financial regulations, government procurement guidelines have to be followed when making purchases or in some instances proceeded by a pre-qualification process. “However in this instance, neither was the pre-qualification process followed nor tenders called. Instead, a decision had been made arbitrarily to make this massive purchase from Elekta. Despite, the fact that there were four international manufacturers of medical linear accelerators, violating tender procedure, Elekta was allowed to give their price and the Health Ministry agreed without any evaluation. The prices paid by the ministry exceeded the market price by more than 50 per cent raising questions as to who the beneficiaries of this largesse are,” sources added.

According to the sources, there are several requirements to be followed before a radiotherapy machine is installed because it has to be properly installed and monitored to prevent any health hazards and environmental effects by its radiation. First and foremost there should be a separate bunker with a minimum wall thickness of two metres and the bunker should be fully air-conditioned.

“Batticaloa, Jaffna, Karapitiya and Kandy are alleged to have failed to complete the constructions to the required standard although the bunker construction work has been completed in the Tellipalai Trail Cancer Hospital in Jaffna and at the Teaching Hospital Batticaloa,” sources alleged.  The sources further said that although approval had been granted to purchase 15 radio machines during the previous regime only three had been imported so far, each costing around US $ 5 million and three more machines will be coming into the country in the near future.  “Since there are no properly constructed bunkers for the machines they have been lying in the storerooms of the respective hospitals over the past three months,” sources said.

However, of the three machines, one had been installed at the Maharagama Cancer Hospital in the existing bunker. “The country needs more radiotherapy machines as cancer is said to be the second highest cause of death in the country. Although the country has spent millions of rupees to purchase more radiotherapy machines, at this moment only two radiotherapy machines are in operation at the Cancer Institute, Maharagama and at the Ceylinco Healthcare Centre, Colombo to  treat all cancer patients in the country,” sources claimed.

The sources meanwhile also alleged that most of the cancer treatment tri-energy machines at the Cancer Institute Maharagama suit bigger body structures which is not suitable for Sri Lankans.

“As a result of this, the machines produce excessive energy and power which damage the healthy tissues around the tumor which causes more danger to the sick,” sources added. According to the sources the reason why larger machines are imported is because of its high cost which will be beneficial for those who are receiving commissions from each purchase.

“The price is higher for larger machines and so is the public money that can be played out by those who are behind the purchasing scams. Without considering what the adverse impact could be on the innocent cancer patients who battle to get their disease cured, they buy these larger machines which make the patients even more sick,” sources alleged. The question remains as to who has given orders to subvert government procurement guidelines and awarded this enormous contract to a single supplier without calling for tenders.

“Such a decision can be taken only by the hierarchy,” sources claimed. Meanwhile it is learnt that the Project Director Asoka Jayawardene had been removed from his post as soon as Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne took over office but action is yet to be taken against Assistant Bio-Medical Engineer S.A.J. Karunatilake who too was involved in the deal. When The Sunday Leader contacted the Director, Teaching Hospital, Batticaloa to check on what has happened to the radiotherapy machine they have received and whether the bunker was constructed to the required standard, Dr. Ibra Lebbe said that the construction of the bunker is yet to be completed.

“The machine will be installed after the constructions are completed,” Dr. Lebbe said. However according to the Director of the Teaching Hospital, Karapitiya,  Dr. Shelton Perera, the construction work is yet to be completed as the air-conditioners are yet to be installed. “We are yet to receive the air-conditioner. The installation of the machine is expected to be completed by November,” Dr. Perera said.

However, E. D. Piyathilake, Chairman of the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau that constructed the bunkers in all hospitals, said that the bunkers in Jaffna and Batticaloa hospitals have been completed and  the radiotherapy machines and the air-conditioning systems have to be fixed.

“We have only undertaken the civil constructions and our work will be completed in Kandy and Galle very soon as 70 percent of the construction work has already been completed. We have followed the specified requirements for the wall thickness in the construction,” Piyathilake added.

He further stated that the door for the bunker will be fixed only after the machine is installed.

Former Director Cancer Institute Maharagama and the former President Sri Lanka College of Oncologists Dr. Mahendra Perera said that whoever alleges about the machine and the radiation system should first be qualified to talk about it. “No one other than a qualified oncologist could speak about the radiation of the machine. These are blatant allegations against the doctors claiming that we play out public money”, Dr. Perera added.

According to Dr. Perera, there was only one radio therapy machine to treat the cancer patients in Sri Lanka ten years back and there was absolutely a need for new machines to be installed all over the country. Therefore the Sri Lanka College of Oncologists (SLCO), a cabinet approved college that represents all the 66 oncologist centers in the country and their members proposed the Ministry of Health to purchase these radio therapy machines in 2011.

“The college only requested for the necessary number machines and not for any particular brands. Nevertheless, there is only three manufacturers that manufacture these linear accelerator machines in the world – Philips, Varian and Elekta. “Varian was the machine that was initially bought and was breaking down very often from 2009. The Ministry of Health decided to purchase Elekta as Philips stopped manufacturing linear accelerator machines for a while and the hospital had a bitter experience with Varian as the machine failed to show the exact point where the radiation has to be aimed at. Moreover, the cost of Elekta comparing with Varian was cheaper as Varian was purchased for Rs. 450 million and Elekta costs only Rs.350 million,” Dr. Perera said.

Dr. Perera  further stated that Elekta, a tri energy machine was installed with 5 years of warranty whereas Varian only had two energy systems with no warranty at all. “The Ministry would have selected Elekta for various reasons. Although the proposal was made by the SLCO to the ministry it had nothing to do with the brand selection or the tender dealings,” Dr. Perera claimed.

by Amavasya Sirisena

President Mahinda Rajapaksa sharing a poignant moment with one-time Governor of Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal

With the unprecedented and senseless borrowing of the previous Rajapaksa regime plunging the country into a massive debt burden of 8,475 billion rupees, many more scandals of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the misappropriation of public fund by the family members are being exposed to the public showcasing the unbelievable levels of corruption created by a Sri Lankan head of state and his cohorts.

Out of the myriad of stories coming into limelight exposing the corruption and machinations of the Rajapaksa regime, whereas the latest revelations in to the controversial Greek Bond scandal implicating to Rajapaksa lackey one-time Governor of Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal in collusion with the then Finance Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa incurring a staggering loss of Rs 9.7 billion to Sri Lanka economy.

The Greek Bond scandal in which the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is supposed to have invested in treasury bonds issued by the Government of Greece and reportedly caused a loss of Rs 9.7 to the Central Bank. Criminal action has been filed against former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and then Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal in the Magistrate’s Court of Colombo. Attorney at Law Kelum Kumarasinghe has filed this action alleging that the actions by the Monetary Board and specifically the Governor of Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal as detailed in the complaint amounts to corruption.The Complainant states that it is of utmost importance that public funds and state property be used for the benefit of the public and public officials who are entrusted with the public duty to manage such public property must exercise and maintain maximum and utmost care and sensitivity in handling such power in keeping with public interest.

Criminal breach of trust

The Complainant states that relevant public officials are not permitted to act in an unlawful, manner in violation of the stipulated provisions of law as there could be no exceptions to the due exercise of care and due diligence as the same would thereby cause irreparable loss to the Central Bank, Government of Sri Lanka and to the general public. Such action amounts to Criminal Breach of Trust by the first Accused who was the Governor of the Central Bank and the Chairman of the Monetary Board. The Complainant states further that where public funds are managed in an arbitrary manner resulting in committing criminal breach of trust of public funds held by the Central Bank in total abuse power vested with the Monetary Board, such action is rendered all the more heinous when there is in abuse of office as evidenced where in the first accused have held the highest office in the Central Bank and the second accused then President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the head of the Ministry of Finance.

The Complainant states that in accordance with Foreign Reserve Management Rules (guidelines) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), to invest in long term debt instruments, the minimum issuer requirement should be in the A3 level (as per Moody’s rating system), as stated in the Auditor General’s Report on the Central Bank dated sixth July 2012.  As per Moody’s rating system (Obligation rated ‘A’ are considered upper medium grade and are subject to low credit risk). The Complainant states that the above requirement has to be complied with when making investments as per Section 5.2.9 of the FRM guidelines. It further states “notwithstanding the above, CBSL may invest in fixed income securities issued by sovereign up to the maximum amount as specified by the Monetary Board that would significantly enhance the rate of return in foreign reserve management after careful consideration of market conditions”.

Higher price paid than actual value

The Complainant states that CBSL on April five, 2011 had invested Euro 22,163,500 (Rs.3,472,576,045) in Greek Government bonds which had a face value of EURO 30,000,000 purchased from the Secondary Market through intermediaries namely Morgan Stanley, Jefferies & Com. Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Plc., Commerzbank AG on April fifth 2011. It is apparent that the bonds were trading below the face value, entailed a realisable value far below the market value of the secondary market due to the debt crisis the government of Greece was saddled in, and the said Bonds were purchased through the intermediaries paying a high price when the actual value was far below the price that was paid for the purchase. It is observed that at the time of the investment the long term debt rating for Greece had been downgraded to “B1” by the Moody’s rating agency.

Obligations rated “B” are considered speculative and are subject to high credit risk. The Complainant states that at the time of the investment, Greece was entrapped in a debt crisis and international financial rating agencies had downgraded its economic outlook and its ability to maintain financial obligations. The high risk involved and volatility in investing in Greek government bonds is common knowledge and does not require careful scrutiny or consideration of market conditions by professional researchers.

Greek economy has been in dire straits

The Complainant states that the Greek economy has been in dire straits since early 2008 and has continued to further deteriorate. The Complainant further states that recession was expected to be deeper in 2011/12 as Real GDP growth recorded a negative growth, the lowest i.e. -6% since the beginning of the Greek recession in 2008 as set-out on page 45 International Monetary Fund Country Report No.11/351 – Greece: Fifth Review under the Stand-by Arrangement, Rephrasing and Request for Waivers of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria; Press Release on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for Greece (December 2011). The Complainant states that it was a widely accepted fact that the default of the Bonds by the Greek Government was only a matter of time and that the probability of default varied between 20% to 30% in the case of Bonds with a maturity period of 1 year to approximately 80% to 90% in the case of Bonds with a maturity period of 10 years as illustrated by a graph, in an article published by the Center for Geo-economic Studies.

The Complainant states that despite the alarming risk factor being very obvious, the CBSL did not pay any heed to take into consideration of the market trends and the projections based on the research papers that were currently available as at the date of the investment/purchase, and instead chose not to obtain the prior approval of the Monetary Board as required by law despite clear credit risk in a surreptitious manner with fraudulent intention. The Complainant states that the requirement for the approval of the Monetary Board has been circumvented on the basis that these securities will be added to the high yielding tranche and in general to be kept until maturity and the approval for investment in the Greek Government bonds had been granted by Governor Cabraal, a Deputy Governor and an Assistant Governor as per the Report submitted by the Auditor General’s Department to the meeting of the Committee of Public Enterprise.

Sold at a loss

The Complainant states that it is appalling to note the sale of Bonds with a face value amounting to Euro 5,000,000 which had been purchased by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka at Euro 4,103,500 had been sold at Euro 3,300,000 on July 13,2011 merely three months subsequent to the purchase of the same, acting in conflict with all accepted principles and practices followed by financial experts in making investments causing loss to the Central Bank and the Government of Sri Lanka by the actions of the first Accused aided and abetted by the second Accused.

The Complainant further states that investment in such high risk investments committed by the first aided and abetted by the second Accused are according to accepted principles and practices of the financial experts to be kept until maturity, with proof as not only the basis of the decision to purchase the bonds but also the rationale of the decision to sell the bonds merely 3 months after the purchase of the same incurring a loss of Euro 803,000  as pointed out in the Report submitted by the Auditor General is further proof of the commission of  Criminal Breach of Trust.

Greece Debt Swap Programme

The Complainant states that the Monetary Board headed by the first Accused had taken a decision to accept the Greece Debt Swap Programme under which the CBSL was compelled to accept the following in respect of Bonds containing a face value of Euro 15 Million:

The Complainant  states that the loss incurred as a result of the wipe out only arising out  of the Greece Debt Swap Program is a colossal sum of Rs 1.2573 billion (Rs. 1,257,356,590/=).

The Complainant states that the Leader of the Opposition and the United National Party, which he represents, raised a question in Parliament under Parliamentary Standing Order 23/2 in connection with the purchase of Greece Bonds and the same was answered by former Minister of International Monetary Cooperation, Dr. Sarath Amunugama.

Euro 15M wiped out

The Complainant states that as per the answer given by the said former Minister he has failed to disclose the fact that Bonds valued at Euro 8.025 million consisting 53.5% of Bonds containing a face value of Euro 15 million was wiped out as disclosed by the Auditor General.

However former Minister Amunugama disclosed to the Parliament that US$ 5.5 million was incurred as a loss in the sale of Bonds with a face value of Euro 10 million, in the sale that occurred in November 2011, in addition to a further loss of US$ 1.1 million that was incurred in the sale of another set of bonds with a face value of Euro 5 million.

The Complainant  further states that the loss incurred of US$ 5.5 million by way of a sale of Bonds with a face value of Euro 10 million and the sale of the said bonds with a face value of Euro 10 million itself, has not been disclosed in the Auditor General’s report.

In the circumstances it is stated that the total loss incurred by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka as per a compilation of the revelations made in the Auditor General’s report and the Answer given by former minister Amunugama in Parliament is illustrated in the table below:

Dishonest and intentionally deceitful conduct

The Complainant states that despite the above investment being contrary to accepted procedure it is questionable and is implicit of dishonest, and/or intentionally deceitful conduct of first Accused Governor Cabraal.

The Complainant further states that the purchase of the Bonds issued by the Government of Greece by Cabraal has not been done at source namely the primary issue and instead has been purchased through the secondary market from those who have already purchased such bonds through brokers which is unprecedented. Namely the said intermediaries were Morgan Stanley, Jefferies & Com. Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Plc., Commerzbank AG on April fifth 2011.

The Complainant states that either X2 or X6 does not reveal the Market value of the bonds as at the date of purchase on April five. 2011 from the intermediaries nor the market value as at the date of the answer given in the Parliament.

The Complainant states that as per the revelations of the former Minister Amunugama and the Auditor General the loss of Public Funds to the State is a sum of approximately Rupees 2.14 billion.(6.6 M US$ + 8.025 M Euros). This sum is not conclusive as the present market values of the remaining bonds are not known.

Investment in totality is ab initio illegal

The Complainant states that as the impugned investment has been carried out arbitrarily and capriciously at the outset, only with the prior approval of the Governor, Deputy Governor, and an Assistant Governor without any assistance from the research division of the Monetary Board or  the Secretary to the Treasury who is the link between the Government and the Monetary Board the impugned investment in totality is ab initio illegal and has now caused an enormous loss to the taxpaying citizens of the country.

The Complainant states that this investment has been carried out at the behest of the first accused Cabraal and the second accused Mahinda Rajapaksa in an illegal and dishonest manner with intent of personal gain as these two persons are on the Monetary Board by virtue of their official status as the Governor of the Central Bank and the second accused having aided and abetted the first accused to commit the offence of Criminal Breach of Trust.

The Complainant also state that first accused Cabraal and the secnd accused Mahinda Rajapaksa have committed offences punishable under Section 388 of the penal code punishable under Section 389  of the  Penal Code and having committed the offence on Public Property Act and Act No.19 of 1994 – the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).

Grave loss, damage and mischief to the public

The Complainant states that as a result of this arbitrary and irresponsible exercise of authority by the said Cabraal and Mahinda Rajapaksa the citizens of the country are now called upon to pay for the losses incurred. These actions and omissions have a material bearing on the State and the citizens of the country.

The Complainant states that:-

(i) from the foregoing facts it is clear that the relevant financial supervisory institutions set up by law have been suppressed with information and their sanction not obtained and such illegal, deceitful and fraudulent  conduct by the first and the second accused have resulted in causing grave loss, damage and mischief to the Government and the public, wrongfully and unjustly causing the alienation and/or unjustly causing mischief to  the property of the public held in trust, in blatant violation of all applicable laws.

(ii) the said illegal, fraudulent, deceitful and unlawful acts of the first and the second accused by making / aiding and abetting in making such investment has caused enormous losses and an economic burden to the citizens of the country.

(iii) the averments disclose the startling, wrongful, unlawful and fraudulent transaction causing enormous loss and detriment to the Government and the public, including the Complainant violating the rule of law, with misuse and abuse of power in breach of the trust of the people by the arbitrary acts of the first accused Cabraal and the second accused having caused the offence of Criminal breach of Trust.

Former President implicated

The Complainant further states that the second accused being the Minister in charge of the subject of Finance and the first accused was directly reporting to the second accused. This incident causing loss to the EPF was very much publicised and was reported in the public domain. However the second accused aided and abetted the first accused by knowingly ignoring his illegal conduct and encouraged the first accused to commit the offence of criminal breach of trust of the funds of the EPF that was entrusted with the first accused as the head of the Monetary Board.

The Complainant states that as the second accused relinquished the office of the President of the Republic of Sri Lanka on January eighth 2015 as he does not enjoy any immunity, he can be sued in any court of Law.

Prayer

The complainant wherefore seeks summons/notices to be issued in the first instance on the first and second for the offence committed under and in terms of section 388 of the penal code accused and to take steps to punish them under section 389 of the penal code.

The complainant has requested Court to;

issue notice/summons on the first and the second accused in the first instance

make an order to impound the passports of the first and the second accused, preventing him from leaving the country.charge the first and second accused for the offence of criminal breach of trust punishable under and in terms of section 389 of the penal code.Procedure and .to stand trial as provided for under the provisions of the criminal procedure code

by Ashanthi Warunasuriya and Hafsa Sabry

No member of the previous administration gave an answer to this question except MP Namal Rajapaksa who said that these questions should be directed at the subject minister of the time. Although in general the blame was placed on former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as he was head of state, Namal Rajapaksa said that his father had given enough freedom for ministers to carry out the duties in their respective ministries.

An area affected by the floods

Although billions of rupees had been allocated to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) to predict natural disasters, because of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, most of the money had been swindled. If the DMC had carried out their responsibilities, it is being said that hundreds of lives could have been saved from the recent catastrophe. The manner in which corruption can influence disaster management has thus become glaringly obvious.

The Ministry of Disaster Management was initially set up in 2005. The primary objective of the new ministry was to manage the relief efforts of the 2004 tsunami disaster, which was the worst natural disaster in recent history. The first minister in charge of Disaster Management was Mahinda Samarasinghe.

Allegations have been levelled at the respective ministers for purchasing low quality equipment although Rs. 2.728 billion had been allocated to purchase state-of-the-art equipment. It has now been revealed that the Netherlands had granted 43 million Euros for a certain project and  during 2010-2013, the UNDP had granted US $ 2.5 million for disaster management projects in Sri Lanka although no one knows what happened to the funds.

When questioned by The Sunday Leader regarding these allegations, former Minister for Disaster Management in the Rajapaksa regime and present Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said that during his tenure, the DMC neither received any foreign aid nor purchased equipment.

“During my tenure, new equipment was not purchased for the DMC. At that time we did not receive any foreign funding as well. We constructed tsunami warning towers. Our budget was below Rs.15 million and we had to carry out the work with this money. Currently the DMC operates with the help of the military and needs more than 5,000 workers. However at present there are only 200-300 staff which is well below the required numbers,” the minister claimed.

According to Amaraweera, the UNDP had never given the DMC any funds to purchase equipment but only to conduct training programmes to raise awareness on the challenges of facing a natural disaster. They had also set up an office in Sri Lanka and the employees had been paid by them.

When asked about the radar machine that had been imported in 2007 to be installed in Gongala Kanda, the minister said the machine had fallen down on its way to the summit.

“We tried to get it repaired but the company that had produced the machine had been shut down by that time. The fault is with the officials who were careless and ignorant,” Amaraweera said.

Meanwhile, Minister of Disaster Management, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa refutes allegations levelled against the ministry for mishandling the equipment received. When asked whether it was true that part of the money received from Netherlands had been used for the Rajapaksa election campaign in 2010, the minister denied the charges.

“We received a grant from the Netherlands government and imported the Doclar Radar. It was to be fixed on the Gonagala summit and a building and a tower were also constructed. When the radar machine was on its way to the summit, the crane which was carrying the equipment broke down and the radar could not be taken to the summit. This project was not handled by the disaster management ministry but by the local government ministry. Since we could not fix it, now its license has expired and even the radar machine is out of order having been left unused for years. In order to send some parts of this machine to the USA to have it repaired, I am planning to submit a cabinet paper for approval,” the minister said.

However, Director General, Department of  Meteorology, Lalith Chandrapala said that the Doppler Radar which is said to be superior at forecasting weather conditions, is yet to be installed even though it was bought and received by the Meteorology Department in 2011.

Chandrapala said that the Doppler Radar cannot predict the weather conditions but could identify the rainy clouds and predict as to when to expect rainfall.

“People who criticise the department and its forecasts should know the facilities we have got as we are carrying out our duties with the minimum facilities,” Chandrapala said.

According to Chandrapala, the UN Meteorology Department signed an agreement with the Ministry of Disaster Management to develop a disaster management system and weather forecast in the country. As a result the Doppler Radar was recommended to be installed in the country.

“The equipment was imported to the Meteorology Department in 2011 through a transparent tender. There were several requirements prior to the installation of the Doppler Radar. A tall tower had to be constructed and a large crane was needed to carry the radar to the summit. Although a tower was constructed, the road became impassable when the crane attempted to take the machine to the top of the summit and the installation had to be  stopped temporarily. The re-installation was done by end 2013 but it failed to function due to some technical errors. Therefore, the ministry had to convince the manufacturers to repair the system and finally now the manufacturers have agreed to carry out the repairs,” Chandrapala added.

Meanwhile allegations have been levelled at the National Disaster Management Relief Service Centre (NDMRSC) for not distributing the donations received for the victims.

Director General NDMRSC, G. Wimalaweera claimed that the consignments were distributed to the affected through the District Secretariats.

“This centre does not directly deal with the affected but through the District and the Divisional Secretariats. It is they who identify the affected and what their needs are,” Wimalaweera said.

Wimalaweera further stated that no one can allege that those who were affected were not given food and disaster relief as the department has all the records of how the affected were identified and basic needs distributed from the donations received from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Singapore and China.

“We are in possession of all the documents and receipts that were signed by the Divisional and District Secretariats when accepting the donations. Those who were affected have enough food items where they can even have five square meals per day instead of three. In such a scenario, how can anyone accuse us of not carrying out our duties,” Wimalaweera claimed.

Meanwhile Director General Disaster Management, Major General L. B. R. Mark said the Ministry of Disaster Management and the NDMRSC are working together with the security forces to control the situation and to help those affected by the floods and landslides.

“We completely deny the accusation that the department misused the money and the disaster relief given to the ministry as we have worked round the clock. The security force personnel know how we have distributed these relief items,” he said.

Meanwhile, it is alleged that the disaster management project initiated by the  United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with a sum of US dollar 2.5 million in 2011 to construct 100 camps in the north east and to supply beds, mattresses, bed sheets, generators, solar power systems, household equipment, telecommunication systems, mobile toilets and many thousands of disaster-conducive equipment had disappeared.

“Whoever alleges the department misused funds should clarify the details before they levels accusations. It is really unpleasant how Sri Lankans hurl accusations at the department when we have worked overtime, even without our meals on some days and did so much with the limited resources,” DG Disaster Management said.

UN/UNDP Communications Unit Statement

UNDP, as a key development partner, has worked closely with the Government of Sri Lanka over the years on building disaster management and resilient capacities and policy support, working in close coordination with the relevant government authorities.

Between 2011-2013, keeping in line with UNDP’s programme objectives together with UNOCHA, we upgraded 100 schools which are used as welfare centers in the Northern and Eastern provinces by providing improved structural safety mechanisms and basic facilities (water, sanitation, electricity, etc.) This initiative was complemented by awareness raising programmes on disaster risk management amongst communities living around selected schools/welfare centers.

Keeping in line with our guidelines, the project was implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Disaster Management and Disaster Management Center. The project was funded by bilateral donors and all funds were channeled to the Government through the Treasury and all procurement requirements were done as per government procedures.

• How buddy-buddy judges Kanishka Wijeratne and Thilina Gamage made a mockery of  the judicial system

by Nirmala Kannangara

The Supreme Court

The conduct of Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne at the hearing of the very controversial case against former Colombo Additional Magistrate Thilina Gamage is shameless and shocking according to legal luminaries in the country.

According to them, Wijeratne has not only brought the country’s entire judicial system to shame but has made law-abiding citizens believe that the country’s legal system is biased. Wijeratne is also accused of giving an assurance to court that suspect Gamage would not influence the witnesses and that an elephant is not public property and hence the public property act does not apply in the charges levelled against Gamage.

“In order to prevent his friend from being sent to remand prison, Wijeratne brought the entire judicial system to shame. How can the Gangodawila Magistrate give an assurance that Gamage will not influence the witnesses when he has already influenced witness Yatawara? How can Wijeratne say that an elephant is not public property? This shows what his knowledge is of the law and unless the Chief Justice holds an impartial inquiry and takes disciplinary action against Wijeratne, the future of our legal system could deteriorate,” the legal luminaries who wished to remain anonymous told The Sunday Leader.

Wijeratne is reportedly a personal friend of accused Gamage and Senior State Counsel Dileepa Peiris’ request to the magistrate not to hear the case if he and the suspect were friends had been blatantly ignored by Wijeratne. He had later criticised the prosecutor for making such a statement in court claiming that there are only a few magistrates in the country and they are all known to each other.

Meanwhile, questions have been raised as to how Thilina Gamage was allowed to walk away 15 minutes after he was granted bail. According to the sources, the person who receives bail must comply with bail conditions before leaving court.

“Going through the sequence of events of this ‘drama’ on June 2 at the Magistrate’s Court Gangodawila, it is obvious Gamage knew what the bail conditions would be. For him to leave court within 15 minutes after bail was granted, he would have brought his passport to surrender it to court together with half a million rupees for the cash bail. Even four individuals including a public servant may have come to sign for Rs. 2.5 million sureties as they were the bail conditions,” sources added.

It was in May last year that Thilina Gamage was ordered to hand over the illegal elephant ‘Sakura’ which was in his possession to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. Later he had gone to Pinnawala and taken his jeep right upto  where the baby elephants were and attempted to feed the elephant some fruit. “When the officers at the Pinnawala Orphanage reprimanded him, Gamage had used abusive language and filed a case at the Chief Magistrate’s Court Colombo stating that he was chased away by the Pinnawala officials. According to the Pinnawala officials, Gamage has not only taken his jeep to the place where the baby elephants were which is illegal, he had carried a pistol in his hand which is strictly prohibited and had later threatened the officials there,” sources added.

Aware that he had committed a crime, was going to be arrested soon for violating the Public Property Act and that unlike during the previous regime there was no one to safeguard him, Gamage had filed a Fundamental Rights Application in the Supreme Court (SC FR 36/ 2016) against the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to prevent him from being arrested. However the SC had rejected the application.

In order to expedite the legal process on the directives of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Department on May 12, directed the CID to record a statement from Gamage to which Gamage was asked to report to CID the following day.

“Director CID sent the message to Gamage through the Maharagama Police asking him to report to CID the following day to obtain a statement. Yet he ignored the notification and did not come to the CID treating the law with utter contempt despite being a judge. Since he was absconding, a letter was sent to the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) stating that he was accused of cheating, frauds and retention of a stolen elephant which is a public property asking that prompt disciplinary action be taken against Gamage. However the JSC too did not act on this but later, instead of suspending him, he had been sent on compulsory leave on May 20,” a reliable CID official said.

Although Gamage was asked to report to CID on May 13, through Attorney-at Law S. D. Weerasinghe, a letter was sent stating that Gamage was sick and asking a date for May 18. According to the CID sources, for the second time, Gamage did not report to the CID on May 18and the same Attorney-at-Law sent a letter stating that due to unavoidable circumstances Gamage was unable to come to the CID. It is learnt that on May 17, Gamage had gone to his chambers but had not got to the bench.

“When the case against the 22 illegal elephants was taken up (Case No: B 23073/ 2015) at the Chief Magistrate’s Court on May 18, the Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya asked the CID whether Gamage had reported to the CID that morning and when told that he did not turn up for the second consecutive time, Pilapitiya gave seven more days, up to May 25, for Gamage to appear before the CID. Being a Magistrate, Pilapitiya too gave a grace period to Gamage. When the facts have been reported to the Gangodawila Magistrate by the CID what made Chief Magistrate Pilapitiya give seven more days to Gamage to appear at the CID when we were planning to arrest him?” sources added.

Disregarding the Judge’s order, Gamage once again stayed away from the CID on May 25.

“By this time he had switched off his phones and was absconding. However the CID officers were able to find out where he was hiding. When our officers had gone to the place Gamage was taking refuge at, they found that Maharagama Police had been providing him security although the JSC had sent him on compulsory leave on May 20. When the CID was looking for his whereabouts, another section of the same Police Department was giving him police protection which is hilarious,” sources claimed.

Meanwhile Gamage has filed an anticipatory bail application (No: 23594) at the Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court seeking court intervention to prevent him from being arrested.

The CID sources further related how the CID had received a fax on Friday May 27 at 4.16 pm from the Registrar Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court asking the OIC, CID who is conducting the investigation to appear in courts on Monday May 30.

“Together with the OIC CI Sagara, ASP CID Nuwan Asanga and Senior State Counsel from the Attorney General’s Department Dileepa Peiris appeared in court on May 30, and the Magistrate in question postponed the case to June 2. On June 1, the CID filed the ‘B’ report in court naming Gamage as a suspect. However on June 2, the counsels who appeared for Thilina Gamage withdrew the anticipatory bail application and we can assume that they knew that the Magistrate was going to grant bail to Gamage,” sources alleged.

According to the sources, more than 30 lawyers appeared for Gamage. Before the bail application was taken up, the Senior State Counsel made a request to Magistrate Wijeratne not to hear the case if he and the accused were personal friends.

“The Senior State Counsel vehemently objected to Wijeratne hearing the case if they were personal friends. Without making any comment, Wijeratne continued to hear the case. Later referring to the accused Gamage, Magistrate Wijeratne said that Gamage was a former judge and had now lost his job and that charges could not be levelled against him under the public property act and once he was given bail he would not influence the witnesses and that Gamage was a law-abiding citizen and always intended to appear in court indicating that he was not absconding,” sources alleged.

Although the procedure after granting bail is to hand over the suspect to the remand officers until the bail conditions are complied, at Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court on June 2, instead of handing over Gamage to the remand officers, the lawyers who appeared for Gamage took him to the third floor where the registrar’s office is located and allowed him to leave the court premises within 15 minutes while also having some goons provide him protection.

“This was to prevent Gamage being photographed by the media personnel,” CID sources added.

The CID sources further described how the court registrar deliberately took time to give a copy of the June 2 ‘landmark’ court order.

“When the magistrate delivered the order, the state counsel wanted a copy of the order immediately. The magistrate said that the proceedings were computerised and wanted to take a copy of it, but the registrar deliberately delayed it for two days,” sources added. According to the sources, when the case was taken up, the suspect got to the dock in full suit which he is allowed to do.

“But interestingly, the magistrate had wanted Gamage to remove his jacket which we cannot understand. We assume that Wijeratne wanted to show those who were present that he was impartial and wanted to uphold the independence of the judiciary. This is ridiculous. There are no such guidelines in court. Anyone can appear in court in decent attire. What made this magistrate ask the suspect to remove his jacket is still a puzzle to all of us,” he added.

• Investigations Into High-Profile Murders

by Camelia Nathaniel, Ashanthi Warunasuriya,  and Hafsa Sabry

The CID’s failure to take a statement from former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka over Wickrematunge’s murder and former IGP N. K. Illangakoon over Wasim Thajudeen’s murder has raised serious questions.

After the fall of the former regime, the stalled investigations into the assassinations of Wickrematunge, Thajudeen, Senior Journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, and former UNP MP N. Raviraj were reopened, and clear evidence has now emerged that the suspected murderers were linked either with the Sri Lanka Army or with the Police Department. Even though much of the information relating to the murderers has been revealed, the cases are still pending waiting for more vital information for the culprits to be charged. The information that will trigger an arrest or a charge is yet to be made as the higher officials of the Army and the Police are allegedly keeping their lips tight on almost all important cases.

Failure to cooperate

The Army Commander’s failure to cooperate with the investigation teams working on the Wickrematunge murder and Eknaligoda’s disappearance by providing the necessary documents, led the CID to request the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate to deliver an order to the Army Commander to release the information they needed.

“It is alleged that several members of the Kohuwela Army Camp have had an involvement in Wickrematunge’s murder. During the previous regime, the investigators dragged the investigations and were heading in a different direction. However, now it has turned towards the military. The CID is currently investigating into the files of four military intelligence unit members. It has now transpired that an Army Colonel was also involved in Wickrematunge’s assassination,” CID sources said on condition of anonymity.

The Founding Editor of The Sunday Leader newspaper, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was brutally murdered on January 8, 2009

Phone records

Meanwhile the CID has taken steps to check the phone records of suspected military intelligence officials and is expected to submit the details to courts at the earliest.

“Although the initial investigation teams working on Wickrematunge’s murder said that his death was due to bullets entering his head, not a single bullet was found on his body or at the site where he was murdered. The police teams at that time wanted to show that Wickrematunge was shot at. It was the same with Wasim Thajudeen. The police team led by then DIG Anura Senanayake who is now in remand custody said that Thajudeen’s death was due to a motor accident and closed the investigation. Since it has now been revealed that the Army was behind Wickrematunge’s murder, the then Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka, has to take the responsibility.

This murder took place at the height of the war and as the Army Commnader, Sarath Fonseka has to say who allowed these army personnel to carry out a private job instead of their assigned duties. It is the same with the former IGP, N. K. Illangakoon. When the media levelled allegations against the Police for concealing evidence of Thjudeen’s murder, the IGP should have looked into and held an independent inquiry. The CID is planning to present this information to the court as well. Accordingly, further investigations will be carried out,” the sources added. According to the sources, in regard to Raviraj’s assassination, the CID has already reported the facts to the court and the submissions have been made by both parties. Once the non- summary inquiry is completed by the Magistrate’s Court, the case will be referred to the High Court for further steps.

State witness

“Raviraj’s murder investigation took a slight turn when the State witness admitted that he witnessed how the murder took place. He admitted in courts before the magistrate that he saw the former MP being shot by the remanded suspect Gamini Seneviratne at Manning Town in Narahenpita.

He also stated that he had previously given statements to the CID on May 21 and 22, 2008 but didn’t reveal the truth behind the killing as his life was under threat. Since the new government was elected to power, he was compelled to reveal the vital truth about the murder. At a previous magisterial inquiry, he had affirmed in court that the officers attached to the naval intelligence camp in Laundry Watta in Gangaramaya conspired to commit the murder,” the sources said.

Meanwhile, when asked why the commanding officers were not helping out with the investigations when military intelligence officers were accused of the murders and abductions of many including Eknaligoda and Wickrematunge, Military Spokesman Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera said that no one can accuse the Army of not taking any action since the Army has always been helping out investigators to nab the culprits.

“No one can say we are not taking any action; but when an investigation is underway, we will help them out in the process,” the spokesman said. The Army Spokesman said that in the case of Lasantha Wickrematunge’s killing, an internal investigation was carried out and based on its findings, measures were taken immediately to hand over all the relevant documents to courts. When asked why the Army failed to release the movement records of the army personnel which the CID wanted for the Wickrematunge murder investigation, Brigadier Jayaweera said that the Army does not always have control of their movements.

“There are two groups of soldiers, those who are living inside the camps, and those who live outside the camp. Personnel engage in outside duties don’t need to obtain permission to leave the camps. They can leave after carrying out their duties for the day,” the spokesman said.

by Third Eye

Anura Senanayake

Complaints against former Senior DIG Anura Senanayake are now piling at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), The Sunday Leader learns.

Senanayake was recently taken into custody for allegedly suppressing evidence related to the murder case of former Sri Lanka Rugby and Havelocks Captain, Wasim Thajudeen.

One such complaint that has been made against Senanayake is on his alleged involvement in the murder of 42-year-old Ramasamy Prabakaran, the owner of Panama Traders, an electronics store cum showroom within the Majestic City Complex in Bambalapitiya. Better known as Majestic City Prabha, Ramasamy Prabakaran was abducted and murdered in 2012.

On February 11, 2012 the Tamil businessman of Indian origin was abducted near his residence on Canal Bank Road, Wellawatte in the presence of his Sinhala wife and daughter.

“The armed men were hiding in our compound, surrounded by a brick wall. They grabbed my husband by the neck and dragged him towards the vehicle. He was screaming for help as they sped away,” his wife Shiromi was quoted as telling the newspapers at the time.

The abductor squad comprising seven persons had reportedly been brandishing assault rifles and shot guns while bundling Prabakaran into a white van that was seen speeding off in the direction of Dehiwela.

Many people in the vicinity had seen the incident but were unable to intervene as they suspected the armed abductors in the white van were members functioning with the approval of upper echelons of the Defence establishment.

Prabakaran’s wife Shiromi, who had noted down the white van registration number and complained to the Wellawatte Police, was told that the number plates were false and the vehicle could not be traced.

A report on the incident published in news websites at the time stated that Prabakaran had been taken into custody in May 2009 as a suspected LTTE member and detained for 28 months. During interrogation he was brutally assaulted and tortured by senior Police officers.

Finally he was released in September 2011 due to lack of evidence and all charges against him were dropped.

Prabakaran however had filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court alleging unlawful arrest and detention. The Supreme Court granted leave to proceed and the hearing was scheduled for February 13, 2012.

The businessman, who was abducted two days before the fundamental rights petition was to be heard in courts, had also filed a motion separately seeking release of his business premises, which were kept sealed under Police guard despite the courts acquitting him of all charges.

When the FR petition was filed, Counsel for the Petitioner, Romesh de Silva P.C. with K. S. Rathnavel, cited Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vaas Gunawardena, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Anura Senanayake, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), and the Attorney General (AG), together with eight others as Respondents.

The petition had stated that Petitioner Prabakaran, a businessman involved in the marketing and sale of electrical and household items at the Majestic City complex, was a frequent traveller abroad. On or about May 16, 2009, while he was away in India, Police personnel from Wellawatta Police Station, together with the CID, visited his residence and conducted a search, following which they had taken documents and material related to his family and friends.

He had stated that, as they could not find any evidence to substantiate the purpose for which they had come, they had taken his wife to the Wellawatta Police Station and questioned her for a long time.

The Petitioner has said that, after his wife had informed the Police that her husband would return to the country and make himself available at the Station, they had released her.

Prabakaran had said that on May 21, 2009, he was interrogated by one of the Respondents, SP Mahin Dole together with other officers, of how well he knew Col. Ranjith Chandrasiri Perera of the Sri Lanka Army and what connections he had with him. The petitioner, while denying all allegations made against him, had stated that he was a friend of the Colonel for the past 20 years and that he was a neighbour of one of his relatives in Bandarawela.

The petitioner was then taken by SSP Vaas Gunawardena to the CCD and was allegedly assaulted with an iron rod in the most inhuman and degrading manner, where he was injured over most parts of his body, including his private parts. He had further stated that on May 24, 2009, personnel from the CCD and SIS had entered his shop for another search and destroyed most of the goods to the value of about Rs. 35 million.

He had said that cruel torture was carried out on him almost every day while he was in police custody. He had also claimed that the CCD had taken most of his documents and also the van he was using, which he had purchased on lease basis. The petitioner had further said that, after the initial date, he was not taken to Court, but the Magistrate visited him in custody. On the relevant case dates, the Petitioner had said that, even after the Magistrate ordered medical attention for him, the CID had not complied.

Finally when the case was taken up at the Mt. Lavinia Courts, the State Counsel had informed Court that there was no incriminating evidence to keep him in custody and that in the absence of incriminating evidence, they were not proceeding with the case, and that the necessary papers would be forwarded to the Magistrates’ Court.

When the papers had not been delivered on two successive occasions, Mt. Lavinia Magistrate Nirosha Fernando had directed that the Petitioner be released on September 16 that year, as there were no grounds for his continued detention.

In a separate development a motion was filed in the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate’s Court by businessman Prabakaran, stating that, despite a previous Court order acquitting him of all charges brought against him by the CID, his business premises were still sealed and guarded by the Bambalapitiya Police.

Prabakaran was reportedly accused of being an LTTE supporter, because he had known Colonel Ranjith Perera who was accused of being an LTTE supporter.
In his defence, he had claimed that he had known the Colonel for over 20 years, as a neighbour of a relative in Bandarawela. He was detained by the CCD for 20 months and brutally assaulted, which was supplemented by a complete statement by the JMO of the injuries he had received during his detention.

He had claimed at the time that, during his detention, his house was ransacked, documents seized and business premises sealed. The case was heard at the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate’s Court, where he was acquitted on September 16, 2011 of all charges as there was no evidence to prove the allegations.

His complaint is that, even after the Court order was delivered, his business premises was still sealed and under police guard.

It is against this backdrop of excessive action by the Police against Prabakaran and the victim resorting to legal action against the Police that the Tamil businessman was abducted.

Prabakaran had also complained to the United Nations of how he was tortured while he was detained at the New Magazine prison.

by Nirmala Kannangara

C 130K transport aircraft

Controversy surrounds Sri Lanka Air Force’s (SLAF) plan to purchase two C130K transport aircraft from Marshall Aerospace United Kingdom when the same company allegedly failed to deliver a transport aircraft to SLAF in the late 1990s although the then Ministry of Defence paid several millions of sterling pounds for it.

Three weeks ago President Maithripala Sirisena who is also Defence Minister, submitted a cabinet paper and received cabinet approval to proceed with the SLAF proposal. However an SLAF inside circle believes that higher officials at SLAF kept the Defence Minister in the dark by not informing him of how Marshall Aerospace swindled the Ministry of Defence in the late 1990s.

It is also learnt that Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi who is well aware of this matter had vehemently refused to sign the contract with Marshall Aerospace to purchase the two C 130K aircraft claiming that he cannot be accountable for any scam.

It was the former Defence Secretary Chandrananda de Silva who had approved the purchase of three C130 transport aircraft in 1998 for a sum of 11 million sterling pounds but Sri Lanka received only two aircraft and what happened to the third aircraft still remains a mystery.  Despite the bad track record of Marshall Aerospace, it is baffling how SLAF is once again planning to purchase two C 130K aircraft for a cost of US$ 35 million which had been sold to Marshall Aerospace by the Royal Air Force (RAF) UK for scrap metal.

According to an expert at SLAF, the questionable C 130K aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed Martin USA 50 years ago in 1966 are being phased out all over the world although the SLAF wants to purchase these aircraft. According to the sources, the RAF had sold each of these aircraft for US$ 2.5 million for its metal weight. However after refurbishment these aircraft are to be sold to Sri Lanka for US$ 17.5 million per aircraft.

“These two aircraft manufactured in 1966 will cost the SLAF a staggering US $ 35 million when they could be purchased for US$ 5 million direct from the Royal Air Force, UK and refurbished by a recognised refurbishing company by spending another US $ 6 to 7 million maximum for both aircraft,” sources told The Sunday Leader on condition of anonymity.

The Sunday Leader in its February 24, 2002 edition exposed this deal in an article titled ‘Where did the third C130 go?’ by Frederica Jansz which showed how the then Defence Secretary Chandrananda de Silva approved the purchase of three C130 transport aircraft in 1998 at a cost of 11 million sterling pounds but only two had arrived. The article further stated, ‘Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) after sealing this deal also purchased from Marshall Hangers certain ground equipment without any tenders being called.’

The article continued, ‘Taking a personal interest in the purchase, De Silva pushed the deal through. He agreed to pay a total of 11 million sterling pounds for the three aircraft and ordered that 80% of the cash be sent by telegraphic transfer immediately after the contract was signed in late 1998. Curiously, the planes were not collected after the monies had been paid for a well-nigh a year. As a result some 1500 hours of flying time left on each aircraft was lost to the SLAF.

SLAF delegation visits UK

‘At the time of inspection in November 1997, the RAF had agreed to grant an extension of 1500 hours of flying time on each aircraft. However, since the deal was concluded only in late 1998, and the planes not collected for a further one year, all three aircraft by this time required a ‘D’ check which is a comprehensive check of the mechanical and other capabilities of the machine. The RAF had informed the MoD that 700,000 sterling pounds required to carry out the ‘D’ check on each plane. The local MoD did not have additional funds. A ‘D’ check was subsequently carried out on two of the planes which were brought to Sri Lanka.

‘What happened to the third aircraft and over two million sterling pounds remain a mystery. Former Commander of the SLAF Oliver Ranasinghe said that as of now there are only two C130s in the country despite a contract having being signed for three planes. The question that begs answer is what happened to the third C130 that was paid for together with the other two aircraft.’

It is learnt that the two aircraft that arrived are not in good condition as one aircraft had a cracked exhaust pipe and had to remain grounded for a period of six months.

In a letter dated October 20, 2015 from Director Business Development and Strategy, Marshall Aerospace, Charles A. Hughes to Defence Secretary, Karunasena Hettiarachchi has stated that these two aircraft are of the same configuration as those supplied to SLAF before but with a longer fuselage and will be refurbished with modernised avionics. The letter states further, ‘If the Government of Sri Lanka desires we are able to offer the upgrade of avionics and to carry out due maintenance checks on existing C130K aircraft of SLAF at an affordable price in order to bring these aircrafts to same configuration as of the newly offered aircrafts. We appreciate very much if your honoured self could avail an appointment for a delegation of Marshall Aerospace and British High Commission Officials to meet you in Sri Lanka in order to present our outline proposal’.

Hence on the request, Marshall Aerospace delegation comprising Simon Charles Glynne arrived in Sri Lanka on December 1, 2015 on UL 504. “This delegation stayed at Cinnamon Grand Hotel and met the Defence Secretary and Commander SLAF Gagan Bulathsinghala on December 2, 2015, and had invited the Defence Secretary and specialist officers from SLAF to visit South Wales for an inspection of the aircrafts and a visit to Marshall Facilities at Cambridge to discuss the SLAF requirements.

“In a letter dated December 2, 2015, Charles A. Hughes had invited Defence Secretary and a delegation to Wales to inspect the C130K aircraft to which Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi  had nominated Air Marshall Gagan Bulathsinghala (Passport No: D 3644429),  Air Vice Marshall L. H. A. Silva (Passport No: OL 3638384), Wing Commander J. M. D. R. A. P. Jayamaha (Passport No: OL 3639738) and Wing Commander P. N. Fernando (Passport No: N 1731066). Marshall Aerospace had agreed to work closely with the Ministry of Defence UK to arrange internal transportation and security clearances for the visit. Hence the visit was made from January 17 to 23, 2016,” sources claimed. According to the sources, although the SLAF is now trying to mislead the masses to say that this is a government to government purchase, and there are no commissions or wheeler dealings involved, the controversy of this purchase never seems to die.

“It continues to cast a slur on the SLAF. A certain Air Vice Marshal who was a Wing Commander during the 1990s visited Marshall Aerospace for technical inspection of the three C130 aircraft. Having knowledge of how Marshall swindled the SLAF he still recommended these C130K aircraft to the Air Force Commander.

Although the Air Force is now trying to say that there is no deal involved in this purchase as this is a government to government contract, the actual contract will be between Marshall Aerospace and the SLAF. According to the proposed deal, US $ 8 million has to be paid as an advance payment and the second payment of yet another US $ 8 million has to be paid after transferring the aircraft from the RAF to Marshall Aerospace and the final payment of US $ 19 million after SLAF accepts the aircraft from Marshall Aerospace,” sources added. According to the sources, even at a time when the US has lifted the defence embargo on Sri Lanka, it is questionable as to why the SLAF does not want to purchase the newest ‘J’ model from the US Government.

US lifts embargo

“Last month the US lifted the defence embargo posed on Sri Lanka and the US Ambassador invited the Defence Secretary and the Commanders of the tri-forces for a discussion. Since there are no more restrictions on us related to defence, why cannot the SLAF purchase these latest ‘J’ model aircraft from the US government? Even if they purchase these aircraft from RAF for the metal weight and give them to an aircraft refurbishment company in Singapore, Malaysia, Portugal or any other better country and get them refurbished which will not cost more than US $ 3 to 4 million per aircraft with a warranty, the country could save more than US $ 23 million in foreign exchange,” sources said.

However refuting allegations, SLAF Spokesperson, Group Captain Samantha Alwis said the proposed purchase of C130K aircrafts will be carried out transparently with the blessings of the Ministry of Defence.

“This is a government to government deal and there is no fraud involved in this as claimed by certain vested interest parties. We are not making any purchase from the Marshall Aerospace but from the Defence Ministry of UK. We have followed the government procurement guidelines and have forwarded our request to the Defence Ministry seeking a cabinet approval. Once the negotiations are done, SLAF Commander will sign the contract on behalf of the buyer and the Defence Ministry UK as the seller,” the Spokesman said.

When asked as to why SLAF could not go for a much latest model than that of a 50 year old ‘K’ model, the Spokesman said that SLAF would have like to obtain a latest model rather than an old model if the necessary funds are available.

“Why not we would like to go for the best but the issue is lack of money. Marshall Aerospace is only carrying out the services and if required modifications for the Royal Air Force as they have the license and the capability to servicing and modifications. It is the Marshall Aerospace that maintains the RAF fleet of aircrafts. You have been misled by your sources that the SLAF will be purchasing the aircrafts from Marshall Aerospace,” he added.

Asked as to what happened to the third C 130 aircraft that Sri Lanka paid for in 1998 but never returned, Group Captain Alwis said that Sri Lanka although wanted to purchase three C130 aircrafts in late 1990s paid only for two aircrafts due to lack of funds.

“At the time of the negotiations the then Defence Ministry in late 1990s wanted to purchase three aircrafts to a price both Sri Lankan and UK Defence Ministries agreed. However from this end there was a delay in going through the process. By this time the aircrafts had to undergo major services as stipulated by the UK Defence Ministry regulations which cost was so high that the SLAF did not have the funds to absorb the service charges. As a result we deiced to purchase only two aircrafts instead of three. Since the initial plan was to purchase three aircrafts and as only two were delivered, there was a rumour that Marshall Aerospace had swindled the SLAF which is incorrect,” the SLAF Spokesperson added.

by Nirmala Kannangara

The court journal that shows how Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne has written that he allows the accused to pay the bail charges the following day!

In a new twist of events it has now come to light how controversial Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne allowed former Colombo Additional Magistrate Thilina Gamage who is caught up in the midst of controversy, to deposit cash bail the following day without even a request by the counsel appearing for the accused.

Legal luminaries who wished to remain anonymous said it was the first time they had witnessed a magistrate rendering such ‘assistance’ to an accused even without a request being made.

“In the court journal, Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne has put a note stating that he allows the suspect to deposit the cash bail the following day. This is against the law. There are instances where counsel appearing for suspects asks for a grace period to deposit cash bail and the bench has allowed it. Why we are saying that this is an extraordinary case is that a magistrate does not have the power to supersede the country’s law. Unless the counsel appearing for the suspect makes a written or an oral request seeking a grace period, the magistrate cannot allow the accused to pay the cash bail on another day. If so, until the cash bail is deposited, the accused has to be sent to remand prison,” sources said.

The sources further explained how the Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court has so far failed (from June 2 to June 17) to obtain the respective Grama Niladhari’s letters to confirm that the four parties that signed for the Rs. 2.5 million each sureties bond are in a position to pay the money in case Gamage does not report to CID and ensure that the national identity cards given to court are genuine.

“The court registrar should take sole responsibility and also in such an event the magistrate can cancel the bail immediately and arrest the suspect,” sources added.

Meanwhile questions have been raised as to whether Thilina Gamage was also allowed to surrender his passport to court the following day as the court registrar’s records show that she accepted Gamage’s passport after granting bail.

“Court registrar Thilani de Silva, like Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne, is alleged to have violated the rules and regulations of court proceedings. The Judicial Service Commission should take quick disciplinary action against her for her alleged behavior in discharging her official duties. According to the bail document of Thilina Gamage, the registrar has stated that she accepted Gamage’s passport on June 2 but again she writes that she put the passport in the court safe on June 3.”

The sources further criticized the Gangodawila registrar for her high-handed act of not submitting the original documents of Gangodawila Magistrate’s June 2 ‘landmark’ court order although she was asked to send them to the Colombo High Court.

“When the Attorney General filed a revised application with the Colombo High Court on June 13 seeking to annul Thilina Gamage’s bail order and to remand him under the Public Property Act, Colombo High Court Judge Manilal Waidyathilake ordered the Gangodawila registrar to send the court order to which she did not respond. How can a registrar of a magistrate court ignore an order given by a high court judge? Could this be because she too is against the high court decision to annul the bail order given on Gamage?” sources added.

“In the meantime the Judicial Service Commission on Thursday had appointed District Judge Mapa Bandara to hear future cases regarding Gamage’s case. When we reported the facts to the Gangodawila Magistrate on Thursday in regard to the stay order, the District Judge declined to hear the case for a personal reason. Now it is up to the Chief Justice to send another judge from Colombo to hear the case,” sources claimed.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Gamage’s counsel had filed a motion asking the Colombo High Court Judge to give a clarification as to why he gave a stay order on June 13 annulling the Gangodawila Magistrate’s ruling.

“How can the accused’s counsel ask for a clarification from the high court judge? If this is allowed to happen, in future, in all cases, everyone will come and ask the judge to clarify why such a judgement was given. This is an insult to the judiciary,” sources added.

Meanwhile Director, Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, Dhammika Malsinghe when contacted recounted how Thilina Gamage, when he was the Colombo Additional Magistrate, threatened Deputy Director, Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage Dinushika Manawadu for not allowing him to see his elephant which is now being kept at Pinnawala. After the Wildlife Department arrested illegally kept elephant calves, all such calves were kept under the care of a veterinary surgeon at Pinnawala.

Despite this order, Magistrate Gamage on December 23, 2015 had entered Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage illegally with a Buddhist monk and an armed police bodyguard in his jeep. “On this particular day, a jeep entered the orphanage. When the security asked why the vehicle was taken to a restricted area, the person who got down from the jeep said he was the Colombo Magistrate and that he received permission from the Deputy Director to feed fruits to his elephant calf who is being held at the orphanage.

It was at this time our Deputy Director arrived on the scene and when she inquired as to why the jeep was driven into the premises without permission, Gamage had said that he got permission from the Deputy Director without realising that he was talking to the officer concerned. While a magistrate, he forged documents to obtain ownership of a baby elephant and this time he once again lied to the orphanage employees,” Malsinghe said.

Following the release of the Auditor General’s initial report on the investigation into illegal elephant registrations by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), all eyes were focused on JSC as to what action they were going to take against Gamage.

According to the audit query of Deputy Auditor General A. H. M. L. Ambanwela, all documents that have been submitted to the Wildlife Department to get this elephant registered are fraudulent and the signatures of government officials have been forged.

According to the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (FFPO) Section 22(A) as amended in 2009, any person who owns, has in his custody or makes use of an elephant which is not registered, and a license obtained in accordance with the provisions of this section, shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not less than one hundred thousand rupees and not more than two hundred thousand rupees or to imprisonment for a term not less than two years and not exceeding five years or to both such fine and imprisonment.

However, after this highly remarkable audit query was sent to the Secretary of Wildlife Resources Conservation Ministry on July 22, Deputy Auditor General A. H. M. L. Ambanwela, who conducted the investigation by recording statements from 43 officials involved in the illegal elephant registration, has been removed from all investigations he was conducting and was transferred to another section with less responsibilities.

According to the audit report, signatures of the Divisional Secretary Homagama, A. J. Karunaratne and Grama Niladhari H. P. Bandulasena and their official stamps have been forged.

The audit query report further states, “Although the address of the applicant in the elephant registration application has been given as 409, Meegoda, Ovitigama, it was revealed at the audit investigation that there is no such person by that name living in the given address.

Two former Grama Niladharis H. Bandusena and Ranasinghe Arachchige Ranjith Gamini, the present Grama Niladhari Thilan Attanayake and Divisional Secretary Homagama, A. J. Karunaratne confirmed in writing at the audit inquiry that an elephant calf was not born at the address given in the registration application and there is no evidence to prove that there was a she-elephant living in the area which had given birth to a calf.

Meanwhile giving evidence at the audit investigation, Priyanka Sanjeewani, Management Assistant at the DWC has admitted that she had to prepare the fraudulent documents and number them on the instructions of her superiors.

She has further stated that the documents pertaining to the elephant registration number 334 were inserted to the elephant registration book at the DWC removing some other documents in the book. She has also confirmed that although the application for registration was dated as November 12, 2008 the application had really been forwarded to the DWC at a much later date.

It was in 2009 that new amendments were brought to the FFPO where it was made mandatory for elephant owners to inform the DWC when a she-elephant gets pregnant and the department has to be informed within seven days of a birth of an elephant calf. These regulations were brought to prevent the elephants being captured from the wild.

The report states further, “The management assistant stated that she had to back-date this particular application as November 12, 2008 in order to circumvent the new regulations that said registrations are given only to the elephants that are born after the new regulations were introduced. Since this animal was not born to a domesticated elephant and was captured illegally from the wild, the wildlife officer had to put a bogus date to the application form.”

According to Priyanka Sanjeewani, although she had to put a date to the application and followed the superior’s instructions, she was not aware that the date that was put in the application was a public holiday, full moon poya day.

The audit officer in his investigation report has stated how the DWC had given the elephant’s details in the registration license which was the same as that given in the application form.

“In the fraudulent application submitted on November 12, 2008, the height of the elephant calf was given as four feet and six inches and his age as three years. However the DWC, in the certificate of registration too has given the same height as in the application but only changed the age of the elephant to five years,” the report states.

According to Pubudu Weeraratne, Director Species Conservation Centre, it was a noticeable miscalculation by the DWC to put the same details of the elephant calf given in the application in the certification of registration as well.

“This clearly shows how the DWC officials were desperate to give the registration to the party concerned in a rush. If not how could they include the same details in the certification of registration of the animal as per in the application form,” he added.

Although the DWC gave the registration license to the elephant calf in question on March 27, 2012 based on the fraudulent documents, in a letter dated October 26, 2012, Udeni Wickremasinghe, the then Acting Director General DWC cancelled the license of this elephant calf (registration number 334) claiming that the documents provided to obtain the registration were fraudulent thus ordering the owner to hand over the animal to the Wildlife Department.

However this decision was reversed on January 21, 2013 by the Director General H. D. Ratnayake.

In a letter dated January 21, 2013 to the Secretary, Ministry of Wildlife Resources Conservation, the Director General of Wildlife has stated that the investigations carried out by the Assistant Director (Investigation) Wildlife Resources Conservation Ministry has recommended the annulling of the October 26 decision and to give back the registration number 334 to the owner. According to the audit query, Assistant Director (Investigation) Wildlife Resources Conservation Ministry H. M. G. K. Kaluhendiwela has not conducted a thorough investigation to unearth the frauds that were carried out to get Thilina Gamage’s elephant registered as he (Kaluhendiwela) had considered what the Fort Magistrate and the wildlife officials have stated at the preliminary investigation as factual. However the audit officer, after speaking to the Divisional Secretary Homagama and three Grama Niladhari officers of the area and the wildlife officials, uncovered the fraud that took place in registering an elephant calf that was captured from the wild and not born to a domesticated animal.

• Suppressing the Audit Act

by Nirmala Kannangara

Auditor General’s Department

The failure to bring in the Audit Act which gives powers to the Auditor General to recover state money looted by errant politicians and government officers is a clear indication of how the Good Governance administration is trying to protect thieves.

The rulers who promised to bring in the long-stalled Audit Act are now preventing it from being tabled in cabinet to have it approved for implementation.

While the legislatures of 2004, 2005 and 2010 were reticent in bringing in this very important act that gives powers to the Auditor General to recover public money that has been plundered, now we see ministers in the Good Governance administration too following in those same footsteps much to everyone’s surprise.

Had the Audit Act been ‘given life’ by March 19, 2015 within the 100-day programme as promised on election platforms prior to the 2015 presidential election, the government coffers could have by now recovered millions of rupees looted by fraudsters.

“This is why we urge the present government to get this bill passed in cabinet to give the Auditor General the necessary powers to recover the stolen wealth within a maximum period of one year from all those who have looted state funds. Not only will politicians have to pay back the money they swindled, but also down the line from ministry secretaries, additional secretaries to clerks or even peons will have to pay back what they have illegally earned under the protection of politicians,” Chairman, Sri Lanka Audit Services Association, M. S. Nayana Kumara said.

Meanwhile highly reliable sources at the Auditor General’s Department said on condition of anonymity how Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had requested the Auditor General to remove Sections 21 to 25 of the draft Audit Bill claiming it was a request from ministry secretaries as the said sections would give powers to the Auditor General to recover looted money which is against the rules of Natural Justice.

“Is swindling public money and dragging the country to economic hardship and burdening the general public the rule of Natural Justice? At a time the Attorney General has clearly stated that all components of Natural Justice under Sections 21 to 25 of the draft Act are covered, what made the Prime Minister make such a request of the Auditor General and in the process delay the bill from being presented to the cabinet for approval and publish the Gazette Notification and thereafter get it passed in parliament? Although the politicians and ministry secretaries claim giving powers to the Auditor General to recover the looted money is against Natural Justice, how can they claim as such when the act clearly states how this money could be recovered following an acceptable procedure,” sources questioned.

“Once the audit reports are made, we identify those involved in the scams that incurred huge losses to the state. We then send surcharge notifications to those who were responsible for the losses. The accused then have the opportunity to appeal to the Auditor General and in such instances we once again review the matter. If we cannot accept the appeal, we issue surcharge certificates. The accused once again can appeal this to the Audit Commission which is headed by a Judge of the Court of Appeal and two distinguished personalities.

The Commission can review this and has the authority either to write off the surcharge, reduce it or to impose the same surcharge without any changes. If the suspect is still against the decision, he/she can appeal that in the Court of Appeal. If the surcharge is not changed, this is referred to the Magistrate Court where the amount is recovered as a fine and remitted to the consolidated fund,” Nayana Kumara said. In such a background, it is questionable as to why politicians and ministry secretaries claim that the surcharge procedure is against Natural Justice.

“It is not the Auditor General who recovers the money; a long procedure has to be followed. However it won’t take time like when a case is heard in court. Within one year the state can recover the stolen money. Since the present day ministry secretaries are bending backwards to fulfil any illegal request made by politicians, these secretaries have got scared that if this Act is passed in parliament, they will have to pay for the ‘sins’ the politicians have committed,” Nayana Kumara added.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a note to cabinet dated March 29, 2016 which is further to his note to cabinet No. 15/ 0458/ 602/ 030 dated April 20, 2015 on the National Audit Bill had stated, ‘The Attorney General has submitted his observations on the draft bill and the amendments suggested by the Attorney General have been incorporated into the bill by the Legal Draftsman. Accordingly, the draft bill is submitted herewith for approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to publish in the government gazette and to present the said bill thereafter in parliament.

Ranil Wickremesinghe MP, Prime Minister March 29, 2016’.

However, according to the Cabinet Paper No. 16/0581/702/024 of the cabinet decision dated April 26, 2016, which this newspaper is in possession of, after the discussion on the National Audit Bill, a decision had been taken to appoint a Cabinet Sub-Committee to examine the proposed bill and submit recommendations to the cabinet for consideration at its next meeting. According to the observations of this cabinet sub-committee, Sections 21 to 25 are against the rules of Natural Justice and re-drafting the said sections had been recommended.

“When such observations were made, the Auditor General’s Department sought the Legal Draftsman’s opinion. Since these five sections are well within the rules of Natural Justice, the Legal Draftsman sought the Attorney General’s opinion. The Attorney General very clearly in his observation stated that all components of Natural Justice are covered under these five sections. Even after the Attorney General’s observation, the cabinet is still not granting approval to giving powers to the Auditor General to recover the public money that has been looted,” sources added.

Meanwhile Nayana Kumara queried as to why the Prime Minister is asking the Auditor General to re-draft Sections 21 to 25 when it really helps the Good Governance administration to impose surcharges on errant officers guilty of financial misconduct.

“The surcharge procedure involves the recovery of amounts deemed to have been lost to the state through negligence, delay, fault or fraud from officers responsible. The practice of arbitrary write-off should be stopped and every case of loss should be promptly dealt with following appropriate procedures as laid down in the draft Audit Bill,” Nayana Kumara claimed.

According to Nayana Kumara, although the Auditor General has the powers to recover state funds swindled by local government authorities, the powers vested on the Provincial Minister of Local Government can write off the surcharge.

“There are many cases where the respective Provincial Local Government Minister has written off the surcharges. Once the Audit Act is implemented, the powers vested in Provincial Local Government Ministers will be superseded and the Auditor General will get the full powers,” Nayana Kumara claimed.

Meanwhile it is learnt how the government is spending Rs. 3 million to maintain the Audit Service Commission since October 2015, although the Commission cannot function without the Audit Act being implemented. “For the past nine months the treasury has spent Rs. 2.7 million to maintain the Audit Service Commission without any work being done. To show the people that the government had appointed the independent commissions, the Audit Service Commission was also appointed but nothing is happening. What the government could have done was to fist implement the Audit Act and then appoint the Commission,” sources said.

Sources also said there was no necessity for any ministry secretary to get scared of this act being implemented if they carry out their jobs transparently.

“There are many administrative service officers in the pool waiting to get higher positions. To obtain these positions, they have to be on friendly terms with the politicians and promise to do any ‘work’ they want. This means they will carry out whatever illegal directives given by the politicians without considering that they are the chief accounting officers and will be involved with all scams.

Those who are now holding high posts want to safeguard their positions and they too help out politicians in their illegal dealings. Once the politicians are sent back home at an election, it is these chief accounting officers that get caught. Knowing that if this Act is implemented, the money that was defrauded will be recovered from them as well, these ministry secretaries do not want this Act implemented with Section 21 to 25. If the Auditor General gives his consent to withdraw Sections 21 to 25, the cabinet of ministers and the ministry secretaries will certainly give the green light to get it passed through the cabinet and then through the parliament within a few weeks,” sources alleged.

According to Nayana Kumara, there is no purpose in auditing government institution finances if nothing happens other than debating it in parliament.

“Accusing each other over corruption is not enough. During debates the politicians point fingers at each other and from there onwards nothing takes place. Unless these frauds are exposed in the media the general public does not know how corrupt politicians have swindled public wealth. That is why this department wants to get the Audit Act implemented at the very earliest to recover the money,” Nayana Kumara added.

According to the 2007 Mexico Declaration, to guarantee a appropriate and effective legal position, supreme audit institutions have to be independent in the choice of audit issues in their audit planning and in the implemented audit methods as well as in the conduct of their audits and in the organisation and management of their officers. Therefore Supreme Audit Institutions should be free from direction or interference from the legislature or the Executive while fulfilling their audit tasks.

The failure to bring the Audit Act clearly shows how this government, similar to the Rajapaksa government, wants to protector fraudsters and that they don’t want to recover looted public money and give the masses the much promised relief.

• Conflicting state of affairs brings to question the authority of the MoD over the tri forces

by Camelia Nathaniel

CCTV Image of the motorcyclists

In a statement given to the Galle Magistrate’s Court with regard to the ship MV Avant Garde that was taken into naval custody on October 6, 2015, the Galle Harbour Police OIC has said that a complaint had been lodged with them by Deputy Naval Commander, Southern Naval Base Nilantha Heenetigala.

The police told court that while the Avant Garde was being given naval protection, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had written to Navy Headquarters on October 6, 2015 instructing the Navy to provide the necessary facilities for the ship to enter the Galle harbour. A copy of this letter had also been sent to the Southern Naval Base. However in his statement to police the Deputy Southern Naval Base Commander had stated that he had not accepted the letter sent by the MoD instructing the Navy to provide the necessary facilities for Avant Garde to enter the Galle harbour.

According to defence command hierarchy, the MoD is the decision-making and commanding authority for the tri forces and instructions or directions issued by the MoD should be carried out by the tri forces.

The Navy initially claimed that on the October 5, 2015, on the instructions received from the Navy Headquarters, the Southern Naval Command had initiated investigations on the Avant Garde, IMO 8107036.  The Navy had then stated that this ship had entered Sri Lankan territorial waters and was attempting to enter the Galle harbour secretly without having notified the port resident manager or the Navy. In his statement to police, Heenatigala had also claimed that while the Navy then attempted to contact the ship through naval communications, the Avant Garde had switched off all radio communication devices.

Speaking to The Sunday Leader regarding this issue, Chairman of Avant Garde Maritime Services, Nissanka Senadhipathy said, “After the court proceedings and the B reports had been called we got the Navy complaint regarding the arrest of MV Avant Garde.  They (Deputy Commander Heenatigala) very clearly stated that they had received the letter from the MoD on October 6, 2015 around 9.30. The ship was taken into custody at 9.20 on the same day. In that they clearly state that the ship was taken into custody in international waters. They said they received the letter and they also mentioned the contents of the letter and it is written in the courts. They clearly stated that although the Navy had received the letter from the MoD they could not accept that letter. It is a ridiculous situation when a letter written by the Ministry of Defence is not accepted by the Navy.”

Senadhipathy stated that this conflicting state of affairs brings to question the authority of the MoD over the tri forces.

“We now have a doubt as to whether the Navy commands the MoD or the MoD commands the Navy. It is an insult to the government for letting down the higher order of command that shows how ignorant and stupid the Navy is. Moreover it’s a terrible situation when it is such a low-level command in the Navy such as the Southern Naval command refusing the MoD’s directive to unload and hand over the weapons to Rakna Lanka which belongs to the state.” “In the same court proceedings it says that when the Navy had given a statement to the police the Chairman of Rakna Araksha Lanka Limited, Victor Samaraweera had given a statement claiming that these were their weapons and they were the ones who made the request to the MoD and that these weapons should be released. Then the MoD Additional Secretary Saman Dissanayake said that the MoD had issued the letter because Rakna Lanka had sent the MoD a letter on time but they were a little late to grant the authority  and since its government owned weapons they had released it,” Senadhipathy said.

This floating armoury has been in operation for over two and a half years with the knowledge of Rakna Lanka and the MoD and Sri Lanka Director General of Merchant Shipping. Therefore it raises concern as to how the Navy suddenly concluded that this operation was illegal when the MoD had in writing informed the Navy of the arrival of this vessel 14 days earlier.

The Galle Floating Armoury is just one part of the maritime operations of Avant Garde Maritime Services (Pvt)(AGMS) Limited. Apart from the floating armoury there are about 10 other maritime operations carried out by AGMS, namely, air transportation of weapons, maintaining land based armouries, hiring of sea armed and unarmed marshals, hiring of RALL arms with custodians, commercial vessel operations, fishing trawler operations, firing training for foreign sea marshals, conducting of maritime security officer courses, training local sea marshals etc.

However after the ship was seized, the government analyst had examined the weapons on board and stated that having examined all the weapons it was concluded that these were in fact government owned weapons. “Now what has happened is that the Navy has put their foot in their mouth and having spoken too prematurely, they are in an embarrassing situation. How can the Navy say that they cannot accept the MoD directive? We will see all this in court and Heenatigala has to be responsible on behalf of the Navy Commander for not accepting the orders of the Ministry of Defence,” said Senadhipathy.

The Navy had also earlier stated that the Avant Garde vessel had entered Sri Lankan territorial waters illegally. However according to Senadhipathy, the four officers of the Navy who gave evidence to the police had accepted that when they went to sea to inspect the Avant Garde, it was in the international waters. “Hence the Navy also has lied saying that the weapons ship was in Sri Lankan waters. So this is a very serious mistake which was misleading, misguiding and giving wrong information to the MoD and because of two politicians on a personal vendetta they have let down the MoD. This is a very serious mistake and we will say all this in court,” he added. Subsequent to the incident two unidentified suspicious individuals had been loitering about the office of Senadhipathy on a motorbike. These two suspects who were wearing full-face helmets had subsequently been going around his house on the same motorbike. When Senadhipathy made a complaint to the police regarding the suspicious activities of these two persons which was also recorded on his CCTV cameras, subsequent investigations by the police revealed that the motorbike had been registered with the Registrar of Motor Vehicles Department (RMV) under the name of the Navy Commander.

“I have also lodged a complaint with the Mirihana Police that the Navy had sent two persons on a motorbike to my house. At first I did not know who they were. However when I went to the Mirihana Police and lodged a complaint on December 31, they immediately checked and said that it was the naval intelligence.

I don’t know if they had sent these mercenaries to kill me. The Navy Commander has no authority to send such people. I had my bodyguards and luckily they had not done anything to these people. They had sent them back.”

“This matter was not investigated by the police and now it’s up to them to give reasons as to why this was not investigated. This sort of thing should not be happening in this country now. A man like me can get away as I have my own protection but what will happen to someone who cannot defend themselves? This proves what the Navy is capable of. But I don’t blame the whole Navy but just a group of persons within the Navy such as the insane Commander responsible for this type of actions, said Senadhipathy.

When The Sunday Leader contacted the Mirihana Police regarding the progress of the investigations carried out subsequent to the complaint lodged by Senadhipathy, an officer on condition of anonymity said that the CCTV footage was not very clear and that they could not run a thorough check on the number plate of the motorbike.

But Senadhipathy claimed that his security had recorded the number plate of the motorbike in question in their daily security log book and was handed over to the Mirihana Police.

The number as stated in the log book is WP BAG 6093. The police had then checked the number and found that the motorbike belonged to the Navy. However they stated that investigations are still underway.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Leader also contacted Defence Secretary, Karunasena Hettiarachchi regarding the issue, but he stated that he was not aware of the directive of the MoD to the Navy at the time.

However, he said that if the MoD had instructed the Navy to carry out a certain task, then the Navy is bound to follow the orders of the MoD and has no authority to refuse such directives.

The Navy Spokesperson was not available for comment.

by Easwaran Rutnam

Basil Fernando

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has obtained court approval to send samples of the skeletal remains found in the mass grave in Thiruketheeswaram, Mannar to Florida, USA.

This was despite the families of some of the disappeared raising concerns over the Florida based company.

The lab in Florida had earlier claimed that some skeletal remains found in the Matale mass grave were of dogs and not humans.

Relatives of the disappeared believe the findings on Matale by the company in Florida are incorrect and that a similar ruling may be given on Mannar.

CID sources told The Sunday Leader that the investigations on the Mannar mass grave had taken a back seat as several other high profile incidents were now under investigation.

The CID said that court approval was however sought to send samples from the skeletal remains found in Mannar to Florida to take the investigations forward.

The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances at the conclusion of its visit to Sri Lanka last November, noted that there were problems in the way the mass grave sites in Mannar and Matale had been secured and the samples and evidence handled.

The UN Working Group said there was a critical need to improve the forensic capacity of all those involved in the exhumation and identification of bodies as well as on the criminal investigation.

The mass grave was found when workers at a water supply department, attempted to set up an under the surface, water supply pipe in December 2013.

The area was cordoned off and excavation was carried out and more than 90 skeletal remains were eventually found.

Fears later arose that the remains could be of several people reported missing during and after the war.

The Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in a report had stated that there was credible allegations of abductions of at least 100 people in Mannar.

Excavation work on the mass grave has been suspended on several occasions since 2013 and last was after the grave site began to sink.

The court had however given an order to resume excavation in April after removing water which was resulting in the grave site sinking.

The Asian Human Rights Commission said that the Chemmani mass grave and the Matale mass grave are the only two instances in which some progress was made in terms of a judicial inquiry to discover their backgrounds, however even in those two instances after the beginning of some initial steps mainly due to expressions of public opinion from local as well as international sources, the entire process has been stopped. Many excuses have been given for such stoppages, which are basically of technical nature.

“Close scrutiny of these circumstances clearly indicate that there are far more serious objections to inquiries into mass graves than those which are merely technical. Those serious objections are based on political considerations which should not have entered into considerations relating to inquiries of those considerations about serious crimes which are possibly involved in the burial of many human bodies in a mass grave. Thus there are more serious considerations for the failure to investigate into mass graves should be looked into from the perspectives of the nature of the criminal justice that exists in a particular country. Therefore, probing into a mass grave is in fact, scrutiny into the very nature of criminal justice which in the first place made the possibility of the creation of mass graves followed by a prolonged resistance to uncovering the truth which lies behind such mass graves,” Asian Human Rights Commission chairman Basil Fernando said.

He says the study of mass graves must be considered only as a sub-branch, of the studies into enforced disappearances.

“What made a government directly or indirectly approve the removal of measures for the protection of individuals which are contained in any legitimate criminal justice system, in order to enable enforced disappearances of persons? This question is much wider than a study into merely a particular mass grave. The factors that enable the possibilities of enforced disappearances need to be studied in the first place when trying to understand what is in a mass grave and the reasons for serious obstacles being created for engaging in any real judicial and forensic inquiry into the remains that are found in a mass grave,” he added.

Every mass grave is a symbol of the grave yard of criminal justice – AHRC

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) says a simple question that arises when a mass grave is discovered in Sri Lanka, is as to whether it is possible to demand the Sri Lankan state to act within the framework of criminal justice in dealing with such a mass grave when in fact such a mass grave is likely to be a mere manifestation of a state policy which allowed the causing of enforced disappearances. Is it possible for a state to act on the basis of the principles of cheka on the one hand and investigate into the same incidents on the basis of criminal justice principles?

Thus the issue of one of a very fundamental nature, each mass grave raises this fundamental issue. Neither Sri Lankans nor the international community have been able to face this fundamental issue squarely.

The result of not wanting to face this fundamental issue is that of looking for an escape from facing this situation by considering the enforced disappearances as acts of some officers who acted against the law and against the wishes of the governments in power during the time when such occurrences took place. Thus the real circumstances under which such disappearances took place is being overlooked and another ‘reality’ is being created with the hope of rapidly forgetting these incidents with some excuse that something was done anyway.

However, such escape is not possible because a criminal justice system that was displaced in favour of following the principles similar to that of the Cheka, cannot be restored to its former position without facing up to the fundamental transformation that has taken place and without taking steps to abandon the Cheka approach and to replace it once again with a criminal justice approach.

There has not even been a discussion on that fundamental issue. Therefore, finding a solution is not possible when the problem that is to be resolved is itself acknowledged or understood. The result of continuing in this situation is to allow even the loss of memory of a criminal justice system that existed once. As the memory is, itself being lost there is lesser chance of taking any real initiative to restore the principles of criminal justice once again.

When mass graves are looked into as only a part of the overall problem of enforced disappearances then it is not difficult to understand why so much of obstacles are placed against any genuine investigations into a mass grave when it is discovered. The reactions to such discoveries is to find ways to suppress curiosity about the actual meaning of such a discovery and to sabotage all attempts at a proper investigation into such mass graves. It is this that happened in Chemmani and it is also that which was repeated when the Matale mass grave was discovered. Similar sabotage will continue into any other discoveries in the future. If such responses of denial and sabotage is to be displaced the process of this displacement must begin with the attempt to understand how the basic criminal justice system of Sri Lanka was displaced with a system that follows similar principles as that of the Russian Cheka. This is the first necessary step if we are to come out with any meaningful response which would ultimately have the result of restoring the lost criminal justice system of Sri Lanka.

Every mass grave is a symbol of the grave yard of criminal justice in Sri Lanka.

• Lasantha Wickrematunge murder probe

by Nirmala Kannangara

Lasantha being taken to hospital

Director Military Intelligence, Sri Lanka Army, Brigadier Suresh Sallay and a representative from the Commando Regiment are to appear before Mt. Lavinia Magistrate and Additional District Judge Mohommad Sahabdeen on July 12 as per the court order delivered to the Army Commander on Monday, May 30 in connection with the investigations into the murder of the founding Editor of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge.

The failure of the Army Commander to provide certain vital details of the Military Intelligence Unit and Commando Regiment Unit to the court, despite an order delivered on May 6, led the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to make another request to the Mt. Lavinia magistrate to deliver another order to the Army Commander to instruct the Director Military Intelligence and a representative from the Commando Regiment to appear in courts on July 12.

“The court specifically named Director Military Intelligence to be present in court while it instructed the Army Commander to send one of the officers from the Commando Regiment, failing which the Army Commander has to be present in court,” reliable sources from the CID said.

According to the sources, the reason why the CID wanted courts to get these officers to appear in court was to question as to why they are now saying that they do not have the daily occurrence book (DOB), daily running charts, leave registrations and certain other important documents that are needed for the investigation.

“If they say that these details and documents are not with them, then how can they calculate the payments for the staff? The army is trying to cover up these issues claiming that they don’t have the documents. That is why we specifically wanted the court to instruct the Army Commander to send the Director Intelligence and an officer from the Commando Regiment so that we could question them and find out as to why they want to impede information,” sources claimed. According to the sources, Suresh Sallay is a brilliant intelligence officer and had threats to his life from the LTTE after the Athurugiriya fiasco. “He rose during the then Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s tenure and was so loyal to him. As a result he was sent to the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris as an intelligence officer who was instrumental in dismantling the LTTE’s international finance network,” sources said.

The sources further said as to how Gotabhaya Rajapaksa sent Brig. Suresh Sallay to London from France to look after Karuna Amman when he went there in 2007.

“Since Brig. Sallay is such a brilliant intelligence officer, who definitely would know as to whether the documents we need for the investigation had really got lost or whether they are hidden somewhere to obstruct the investigations. We can get the details from him,” sources claimed.

Meanwhile, Attorney at law Athula S. Ranagala, who looks after the interests of the deceased party, told The Sunday Leader how the CID got the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate to send notice on two high ranking officers at Sri Lanka Telecom and Mobitel to appear in court on July 12 to show cause as to why they failed to give telephone records of the Wickrematunge murder suspects, as well as those who were involved. “Suppressing evidence too is a crime which is a non-bailable offence. Similar to those who were directly involved in a murder, those who were involved in suppressing the evidence have to face the same charges,” Ranagala added.

According to Ranagala all attempts to get the courts to give back the investigation to CID from Terrorist Investigation Unit (TID) during the previous regime went to deaf ears and after the present government came into power, it was able to get Wickrematunge investigation back to the CID.

“After Mervyn Silva made a complaint to the CID, soon after the regime changed, with regard to Lasantha Wickrematunge’s murder suspects, the courts decided to give the investigation to be carried out by the CID. Initially the CID was not so energetic in carrying out the investigations but they have now shown a keen interest on the matter,” Ranagala said.

He further said that the CID had made a request to the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate to order the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) who conducted Wickremasinghe’s autopsy to appear before CID whenever requested. “Since the JMO doesn’t heed the CID orders, they had to get the court intervention to issue an order to the JMO to appear before the CID as and when they want to question him,” Ranagala claimed.

Meanwhile CID sources said how they want to get some details from the Commando Regiment who were providing security to the then Army Commander Field Marshal Minister Sarath Fonseka.

“The Commando Regiment was working hand in glove with the former Commander and in case if we want to get further details we will have to question Sarath Fonseka as well,” sources added.

The CID is yet to interrogate several key figures, former Defence Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Rambukwella at a media briefing held on January 28, 2009 said that the government was aware of the identity of Wickrematunge’s killers and that Mahinda Rajapaksa was anticipating to uncover ‘some very important details’ by February 15, 2009, into the assassination of Wickrematunge. However, these ‘very important details’ never came to light although Wickrematunge’s widow Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge repeatedly made written requests to the then President and the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) to get an impartial investigation carried out to arrest the murderers and those who were given orders for the massacre.

“For Rambukwella to say President Rajapaksa was going to reveal information about the murder means that the then President too knew who were behind the killing as Rajapaksa did not deny Rambukwella’s claim. However, although allegations are levelled against the CID for not questioning certain high ranking officials in the present and former regimes, they cannot question them without any concrete evidence. That is why the CID had got the courts to serve a court order to SLA to get all the necessary documents to prove who and who were directly involved in the murder and who were indirectly involved in the assassination. Once the CID is in receipt of concrete evidence, they will not hesitate to question even higher officials and take the Attorney General’s opinion and arrest the suspects without considering their affiliations to any political party,” CID sources said.

All attempts to get a comment from Army Spokesperson Brig. Jayanath Jayaweera to find out why the Army is not cooperating with the CID investigations into Wickrematunge’s assassination failed as there was no reply from him.