How cells spelt out the names of top scorers in COPE’s bond game
Mobile phone clues reveal who’s who in Aloysius’s contact list
ALOYSIUS: Busy on line
Sunday, November 19, 2017
First a legal DISCLAIMER to alert the reading public that nothing in today’s SUNDAY PUNCH 1 is intended directly or indirectly, by innuendo or imagination howsoever farfetched to suggest or convey in any manner whatsoever or to create the impression in any wise or dumb mind that those named in the Presidential Bond Scam Commission proceedings on Thursday persons who had been in constant touch with Arjun Aloysius are guilty of any wrongdoing merely because they called and received calls on their private cell phones to and from the said Arjun Aloysius, the primary bond dealer at the centre of the Central Bank’s Rs 5 billion bond scam, who himself, as the law demands and natural justice dictates, is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a competent court of any illegality, if any, in the treasury bill affair.
This Thursday the CID presented to the Presidential Bond Commission for its examination a list of the call records made by ministers and MPs of this government to Arjun Aloysius, some calls made whilst they were serving on the Committee of Public Enterprises which was then inquiring into to the 5 billion buck bond scam. Despite objection from defense counsel representing Aloysius, the Commission ruled the evidence admissible.
So what if there were calls made by Ministers and MPs who were members of the Committee on Public Enterprises to the whiz kid of treasury bonds Arjun at a privileged rate that enabled him to walk away with a cool 5 billion bucks killing stuffed in his backpack from the imposing edifice of the Central Bank where his father-in-law Arjuna held court as Governor on its fifth floor? Is it a crime to dial a friend’s number, an offense to receive a call from a friend even if he is accused of a wrongdoing? Is it the politically correct philosophy of this country today that friendship must be based on fair weather?
SENASINGHE: 227 calls
Of course, there is the popular notion, that one shall be judged by the company one keeps. Of course, in the Buddha’s Mangala Sutra there is that nagging stanza to avoid, even shun, the company of unsavoury characters but on a pragmatic level as a practicing politician in Lanka’s current pervasive political climate can one demand a character certificate from a person before wooing his vote and accepting it with thanks?
To put it another way, even as the Buddha exhorted his lay disciples in the Mangala Sutra to bask, instead, in the company of the wise, the learned, the morally and monetarily incorruptible, isn’t it far too much to expect a person who had taken to politics to earn a living, to emerge from an audience with the chief monk of the Malwatte Chapter adorned with a halo of a more enlightened being?
Given the amounts of visits Lanka’s politicians have had with the venerable monk, occasioned by every drop of their hats and the moments spent in such sagacious company, Lanka’s ministers and MPs would have been Arahants by now and the nation’s remaining lay would have been forced to request New Delhi to add politicians, too, to the list of carpenters, masons, doctors and labourers in the Indo-Lanka ECTA treaty soon to be signed to import from India a shipload of Jayalalithaas and Ramachandrands in the age old manner Chola scions were invited to become kings of Sihale Lanka.
The scorecard, according to the evidence presented by the Criminal Investigative Department before the Presidential Bond Commission read that the top bat who scored most for the UNP side was State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe who totted a total number of 227 calls on his normal pay phone with 15 extras on the free Viber and Whatsapp lines with 63 of those calls made during the period he was a member of COPE probing the bond scam.
JAYASEKERA: 18 Calls
Perhaps all these logged calls to and fro from Aloysius to ministers and MPs of the Government were merely to wish one another a very good morning and to inquire after the weather and to express the hopes the rains will soon cease and the storms will soon blow away. One cannot judge a man and put him in the pillory and cast rotten tomatoes for having merely punched a number in all innocence and rule him guilty without first being privy to the contents of the conversation.
No doubt that was the reason that made Minister Senasinghe treat as being below his Kandyan dignity to answer former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son, MP Namal’ s question in Parliament on Thursday.
No doubt that was the reason that made Minister Senasinghe treat as being below his Kandyan dignity to answer former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son, MP Namal’ s question in Parliament on Thursday.
Namal’s question was: “Today, the CID has informed the bond commission that you made 44 telephone calls to Arjuna Aloysius while you were participating in the COPE investigation into the bond scam. What have you to say?
State Minister Senasinghe answer to that was to furnish no reply but to meet question with question and ask the ex president’s son: “Everybody knows your track record. How did you get through the law exams? Could you tell me at least what the first section of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance is about? I challenge you to tell the House if possible and prove you know it. What is the first section of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance about?
Namal was to repeat his question: “You are calling others cheats. How and why did you get 44 calls from Arjun Aloysius? Tell the House if possible.
Senasinghe was to repeat his retort: I will rephrase my question. I will make it easier. Tell the House of any section of the Civil Procedure Code?
Senasinghe was to repeat his retort: I will rephrase my question. I will make it easier. Tell the House of any section of the Civil Procedure Code?
RAJAKARUNA: 176 calls
To be fair to Namal, it did not seem a just question to challenge the validity of his right to claim attorney-at-law professional status, now was it? Namal may have scored 99 marks out of 100 as he is reputed to have earned at the Law College final exam but even if he had scored 100 out 100, failure to remember and answer off hand verbatim section 1 or any section for that matter in the Civil Procedure Code which contains over 830 sections with additional subsections, would not have negated his professional credentials howsoever gained.
It was like demanding a catholic, the Pope included, to quote by heart chapter and verse from every book of the Bible to prove his catholic faith and his right to practice his religion.
And when joint opposition MP D V Chanaka also raised the same question and asked the State Minister Senasinghe to reveal to the House the contents of the conversations he is alleged to have had with Perpetual Treasuries Limited owner Arjun Aloysius, the minister’s stock counter reply was to tell him: “Mallie, do not shout as I have appeared for your father and got him cleared when he was involved in a case involving some ships.”
The rest of the scorecard according to the CID scorer recorded that Aloysius had spoken a total 18 times with Dayasiri Jayasekera, 176 times with Harshana Rajakaruna and 73 times with Hector Appuhamy.
Unlike Senasinghe, Sports Captain Dayasiri Jayasekera did not opt to nudge the ball to the covers but stormed the pitch to hit the ball over silly mid off, saying he had not only had telephone conversations with Aloysius but had even invited him to his ministerial office where Aloysius had tried to “plead his innocence”. Minister Dayasiri added: “He said he was innocent. He asked me to help establish his innocence before the COPE. I declined to do so. I told him that the allegations against him were serious and that I could not help him.”
On Friday, JO MP Udaya Gammanpila urged the Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera – who pole vaulted from the UNP to the Mahinda’s SLFP when Rajapaksa was in power seemed invincible and did a reverse somersault to Maithri’s SLFP when Sirisena won – to clear his name by seeking Speaker Karu Jayasuriya intervention to initiate a probe. Gammanpila’s assertion was that in accordance with the parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act No 2 of 1953, the Supreme Court could be moved against Perpetual Treasuries owner Arjun Aloysius or anyone else accused of exerting pressure on a parliamentary committee and if found guilty, he or she could face a jail term up to two years.
APPUHAMY: 73 calls
Minister Jayasekera’s immediate reported response was to say: “Ask my COPE colleagues whether I have said a word in support of Treasury bond racketeers.” Alas, the public have no direct access to his COPE colleagues and inquire from them what the minister said or did not say to them. What a pity, Minister Jayasekera had to wait for so long till the storm blew in his face to reveal his one to one, face to face, behind closed door meeting with primary bond dealer Aloysius at a time when the 6 billion buck bond dealer was the subject of a COPE inquiry of which committee Minister Jayasekera was a member. How more persuading would have been his belated explanation had he taken the public to his confidence and revealed to the nation then, Aloysius’s alleged solicitation of backroom favours from a Government Minister?
Why Harshana Rajakaruna talked 176 times on his cell phone with Aloysius, why Hector Appuhamy talked 73 times on his cell phone with Aloysius is still not known. Perhaps it was about the weather. And how best to take cover from the storm brewing in the distance.
