Will Sirisena name names?

Monday 22nd November, 2021

The government decision to transfer Rs. 8.5 billion, which Perpetual Treasuries Ltd., illegally raised through the Treasury bond scams, to the state coffers has sparked an interesting political debate. The government has done something right—for once—but its move smacks of politics. What has been stolen from the public must be traced and confiscated. If the colossal amounts of funds the present-day political leaders representing both the government and the Opposition have stashed away overseas can be brought back, bridging the budget deficit will be child’s play. Perhaps, enough funds could be raised for teachers’ salary revisions if the illegal profits some SLPP cronies are believed to have made from the sugar tax racket can be confiscated.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena has said it is he who had Perpetual Treasuries funds frozen, making it possible for the state coffers to utilise them. In a recent television interview, he took a swipe at his estranged yahapalana chum, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who, he said, had claimed the credit for freezing the funds at issue. In an interview with Siyatha TV on Wednesday, Sirisena said the person who had caught the thief should be given the credit for the confiscation of the latter’s booty! One cannot but agree with him on this score.

Sirisena was instrumental in having the Treasury bond scams probed. He appointed a presidential commission of inquiry for that purpose amidst stiff resistance from the UNP, and it is nothing but unfair to deny him the credit for his good work. But he can do much more. In the above-mentioned television interview, he has said he knows who was responsible for the bond scams. He has revealed how he intervened to protect a group of young CID officers who had unearthed information about telephone conversations a key bond scam suspect had had with some UNP bigwigs; he was compelled to do so because the then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe ordered a probe against the CID investigators, he has said, noting that the UNP’s witch-hunt demoralised the CID. (However, he has not said that many of the yahapalana MPs and Ministers who defended the bond racketeers to the hilt are now in the SJB, taking the high road and pontificating to others on virtues of honesty, transparency, etc.)

It is incumbent upon Sirisena to reveal who was actually responsible for the bond scams. Everybody knows that Perpetual Treasuries carried out the racket with the help of the then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, but they would not have been able to do so without political backing. Who was the mastermind behind the bond scams? Why has Sirisena baulked at naming names?

Some of the Opposition politicians who held demonstrations near the Central Bank, demanding legal action against the bond racketeers during the yahapalana government are in power today. One of their election pledges was to have Mahendran extradited from Singapore. (Commenting on their promise in question, we argued that the SLPP politicians would never go all out to have Mahendran brought back here to stand trial for two reasons; they did not want to open a can of worms, and the UNP expected a quid pro quo, having opened escape routes for some SLPP big guns and their family members in trouble during the yahapalana rule.) Sirisena says the Attorney General’s Department has dispatched all necessary documents to Singapore for Mahendran’s extradition, but the incumbent government is not keen to pursue the matter. There is said to be honour among thieves!

When the 2015 regime change occurred, most people naively expected those who had helped themselves to public funds and lined their pockets through corrupt deals during the UPFA government to be jailed. But nothing of the sort happened. They again thought the yahapalana crooks would be made to pay for their sins under an SLPP government only to be disappointed.

Ranjan Ramanayake got it right when he famously told a group of journalists and some members of the public, referring to the politicians of the ruling party and the Opposition, “Mun okkoma yaaluwo malli” (all these fellows are friends, bro). Ramanayake is in prison because he failed to exercise control over his restless tongue and antagonised the judiciary, but the crooks who should be behind bars are going places.