Who is ‘Mr. 10 per cent’ at PM’s office?

Wednesday, 15 April 2015 

The entire country well knows that during the Rajapaksa regime, it was Basil Rohana Rajapaksa, the brother of the then president, who had been dubbed ‘Mr. 10 per cent.’ Basil, who had started at 10 pc in 2005-06, had ended up at 50 pc by 10 years, it was mentioned those days.

Taking Basil’s precedence, several ‘Mr. 10 pc’ have been born under the ‘Yaha Paalana’ regime too, say unofficial sources. The speciality of these newborns is that they do not charge 10 pc not from new projects, but when making payments to the contractors who had done work during the previous regime. State financial sources say it was to pay those contractors that finance minister Ravi Karunanayake had tried to raise 400 million US dollars through a sale of additional bonds.

As matters stand thus, a top official at the PM’s office has obtained a 10 pc commission when paying Rs. 300 m to SMS Holdings via the Urban Development Authority for the beautification of Colombo city. Who is this ‘Mr. 10 pc’ in the ‘Yaha Paalana’ regime? Without revealing the name, we mentioned his place as a sign of warning.