Opp Leader Sajith and Namal deny allegations

By Saman Indrajith

The JVP yesterday presented a set of files containing what it called documentary proof of corruption involving Namal Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, Yoshitha Rajapaksa, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, Thirukumar Nadesan and several others.

The files were displayed during an event held at Sri Lanka Foundation, in Colombo, with the participation of several other JVP leaders and NPP members and the media.

JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that his party was in possession of over 500 files on politicians, former ministry secretaries, and investigative officers involved in corrupt activities.

Dissanayake alleged that Yoshitha Rajapaksa and Namal Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa had defrauded public money through Nimal Perera and Thirukumar Nadesan.

He said that the files contained documentary proof to show the corruption that took place in the Airbus deal, the Gin Nilwala project, the Krrish Deal, the Hedging Deal and the Hello Corp Deal.

Dissanayake said that one file contained documentary proof of how

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa had misused three billion rupees from the Central Cultural Fund without proper approval.

Opposition Leader Premadasa, asked for comment, said that there was no basis for JVP accusations. “Absolute rubbish,” he said.

There was a corruption case against Mahinda Rajapaksa’s cousin Jaliya Wickramsuriya, who served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Washington from 2008 to 2014. He was accused of misappropriating USD 3,320,000 as commission out of USD 6,250,000 spent to purchase building premises for the Sri Lankan embassy in the US. Wickramsuriya had admitted before a US court that he got that commission. A commission of 3.3 million US dollars from a USD 6.2 million transaction meant that the commission was more than 50 percent.

“There was a recent exposure by Pandora Papers. We continued to say that Thiru Nadesan was the keeper of funds of Basil Rajapaksa. When I stated that in parliament, I was challenged to state the same outside parliament. We have done that several times. Today we expose the links of transactions. There was a project by the name of Gin-Nilwala and the Irrigation Ministry issued 4,100 million US dollars to a Chinese Company known as China National Merchant just a couple of days ahead of the 2015 election. We have documents to prove the transfer of funds from the ministry to the Chinese company which has a branch in Hong Kong. That Honk Kong Branch released five million US dollars to another company registered there under the name Ruth Investments which belonged to Thirukumar Nadesan. That company sent money to an account in a bank in Kollupitiya. The payments to a house in Malwana have been made by that account.

There was a case in London High Court on the French Airbus deal. It was after investigations by the US, the UK and France. Now it has been found that SriLankan Airlines tried to purchase 10 airbuses and lease four airbuses separately. The sum allocated for this purpose was USD 2.2 billion. Until then the record of highest spending was for the Hambantota Port project at USD 1.3 billion. The commission for each airbus was USD 1.6 million and the total sum of the commission was USD16.18 million. It was later revealed that the deal was not successful. Yet an advance of the commission was paid by the company to a bank account in Brunei under the name of the wife of then CEO of SriLankan Kapila Chandrasena. From that account money was transferred to an Australian Bank account which later transferred them to three Lankan bank accounts. One of those accounts belonged to Nimal Perera. Later the yahapalana government cancelled this airbus deal but paid USD 115 million to the airbus company. That payment was made even without cabinet approval.

Convenor of the Voice Against Corruption Wasantha Samarasinghe alleged former Minister Namal Rajapaksa had received money from two Companies – ‘NR Projects’, a Dutch company and ‘Aspen Medical’, an Australian Company through Nimal Perera connected to the construction of the Nuwara Eliya and Hambantota Hospitals. Rajapaksa has denied the allegation.

Samarasinghe said that fraud came to light during the investigations into a complaint they lodged over the Krrish Deal.

He said according to the B report of the case over the Krrish deal, Namal Rajapaksa had admitted that he had received Rs. 60 million and that he had donated it to a Rugby tournament. “However, the Rugby Federation has said that they did not receive such a donation from him,” he said.

Samarasinghe said further investigations into the case revealed the fraud and corruption involving the construction projects of the Nuwara Eliya and Hambantota Hospitals worth Euro 82 million undertaken by the NR Projects, a Dutch company.

He said the Dutch company and Aspen Medical, an Australian Company had deposited money in Nimal Perera’s Sabre Vision Holdings Aaccount in Singapore, from which money had been channelled to Namal Rajapaksa’s account.

He said the Dutch company-NR Projects had deposited Euro 4.33 million and Aspen Medical Company had deposited US$ 555,000 in Nimal Perera’s Singapore Account.

JVP leader Dissanayake said, “These files are only a very small portion of evidence of corruption in this country. We have some more. We are cautious in exposing these frauds so as not to let the fraudsters understand what we know about their frauds. Some of the issues in these files are already under investigation by several institutions including the bribery commission. Some of them are there in the Attorney General’s Department and investigative institutions without any progress being made. We decided to expose them so that people can understand why the country remains poor.”