Govt. threatens to sue those who level bribery allegations against President Sirisena
Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena addressing the media at the SLFP head office. Jaffna District MP Angajan Ramanathen was also present. Pic Ranjith Wimalasiri
by Dasun Edirisinghe-August 25, 2016, 10:06 pm
The government yesterday said it would take legal action against those who levelled bribery allegations against President Maithripala Sirisena, claiming he asked for money before signing an agreement with an Australian company to build a dam when he was the Minister of Agriculture Development and Agrarian Services in 2009.
Addressing the media at the SLFP headquarters, State Minister of Finance Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said legal action was being processed.
According to a media report, published on The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers in Australia on Wednesday (24), President Maithripala Sirisena and his coordinating secretary allegedly demanded a political "donation" to be paid by Snowy Mountains Engineering Company (SMEC) when Mr Sirisena was a Cabinet minister.
The company emails show a plot to skim the money off a World Bank-funded dam project in 2009. In return, Mr Sirisena was to approve the awarding of the dam contract to SMEC, worth $1.82 million .
SMEC’s Sri Lankan manager, who was recently sacked, wrote in emails to two Australian colleagues that he wanted to "inform the minister/co-ordinating secretary" of the size of an alleged kickback to be paid and that he needed to "prioritise" certain payments to unnamed parties "since the signing of the contract would depend" on it.
According to the media report, Co-ordinating-Secretary said this is the way it goes prior to signing the cabinet papers. He wants us to propose an amount/percentage on the contract value. If you could advise me on an amount of percentage based on the financial figures I could inform the minister/ Co-ordinating Sec …"
Twelve days later, the manager wrote another email saying that unnamed "key people" had asked for approximately "1%... of the total contract."
"The key people have now disclosed their cost as 2.5m LKR [Sri Lankan Rupees, a sum worth about $A27,000]".
Minister Abeywardena said there was suspicion as to why this issue was came suddenly after seven years and there might be a conspiracy behind that.
"It was not a detailed report and no name of the coordinating secretary, but I can’t comment further as a legal process is on-going," Abeywardena said.
Responding a query whey the government also raised old issues against Joint Opposition MPs, the minister said those cases were filed with detailed evidence, but the report against the President had no such details.
