Sri Lanka: Minister’s cock and bull story

( November 22, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The statement made by State Minister of International Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe in a media briefing convened yesterday (21st) regarding the 62 telephone calls he exchanged with the main accused of the fraud that had been committed in connection with the issuance of bonds by the Central Bank on 27th February, 2015 while the investigation by COPE, chaired by the JVP Parliamentarian Sunil Handunneththi, was taking place from 06.05.2016 to 28.10.2016, is now being revealed as an international level slander.

At the media briefing, Mr. Senasinghe said he took telephone calls to Arjun Aloysius to get information for the booklet “Eththa Neththa’ he wrote to ascertain there hadn’t been any fraud in the bond issuance and asked how else he could get information.

State Minister Senasinghe would have written the book on 27th June or around the time which is a time before the general election was held. However, the 62 telephone calls exchanged between State Minister Senasinghe and Arjun Aloysius had taken place while the decisive investigation by COPE chaired by Parliamentarian Sunil Handunneththi was being carried out during the period 06.05.2016 to 28.10.2016.

The UNP Parliamentarian Velu Kumar who was a member of COPE resigned from his membership on 07.07.2016 and State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe was appointed for the vacancy created on the same day. This was after one year he published the book.

It is also stated that during the period 04.07.2015 to 03.03.2017 there had been 227 telephone calls exchanged between State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe and Arjun Aloysius.

According to State Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe, he has acted to save the UNP. The party has to be saved only if the leaders and members have committed errors. UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe too said, after appearing before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Bond Issuance, that errors had been committed.

In such an environment attempting to save bond fraudsters and the UNP leaders who were party to such crimes and coming out with slanders after everything has been revealed would further expose the guilty.