PB demands 2% for a meeting to discuss projects!

Details

 

Created On Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:41

Category: General

Finance ministry and treasury 

secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara is getting his closest friend Nilrusha Peiris to charge a two per cent commission from every foreign company that wants to meet with him to discuss projects. The treasury secretary has said publicly that he was doing so in order to avoid time wasters.

Nilrusha Peiris is one time coordinating secretary to the late minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle. Recently, he infamously came into mention due to a tender scam at the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) which is under minister Dinesh Gunawardena. Even after the contractors were shortlisted for the Anuradhapura South water supply projects, secretary Jayasundara had ordered the NWSDB to allow tenders by China International Mechanical Engineering Corporation (CIMEC).

CIMEC has accordingly made a bid by going out of the proper tender procedure. The local agent for this Chinese company is Nilrusha Peiris. Although the NWSDB functions under minister Gunawardena, it is the finance secretary who runs its financial activities and tenders. That is because the secretary of the ministry is a henchman of his and had worked under him at the treasury. The deputy minister in charge is Nirupama Rajapaksa, a sister-in-law of the president. Her husband, businessman Thiru Nadesan receives many tenders of the NWSDB through the coutesy of Dr. Jayasundara. The coordinator for all these nefarious activities is its working director Gamini Gunaratne alias ‘Batta.’

C. R. De Silva – An Appreciation

By Ravi Perera -November 12, 2013 

Ravi Perera

C.R. De Silva

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of CR De Silva President’s Counsel and former Attorney General.

From his days at Royal he was better known as “Bulla”, of Rugby fame. Bulla was then living down Park Road and although older occasionally joined us for a game of soft ball cricket at the Colts grounds which in the early 1970s was an open ground lined with lush rain trees, very unlike the walled-in, unfriendly monstrosity we have there now.

I lost touch with “Bulla” for some years and met him again only when I joined the Attorney Generals Department as a State Counsel in the early 1980’s. At the time he was an “Acting Senior State Counsel” supervising the Western Province. Then the Colombo High Courts were situated at the old Queens Club building down Buller’s Road .It was a very pleasant setting with a park like environment. During this period Bulla came for two special prosecutions to the Buller’s Road High Court. The first case was before High Court Judge Hon. Lakshman Weerasekera in which a senior officer of the Examinations Department was charged with having fudged examinations results of a student(s) with the intention of favouring him/ them in gaining entry to the university. The accused person was defended by senior lawyer Ranjith Abeysuriya, a much respected professional. As a novice I could not have asked for a better introduction to the hallowed traditions of the legal profession. All three, the Judge, prosecutor and the defense attorney, in their search for a just verdict, did not deviate in the slightest from the straight and narrow path set by an exacting profession. If I remember right the accused person was found guilty and sentenced to a jail term.Read More