Coomaraswamy : A Living Hope
Coomaraswamy hails from a distinguished family: his father was famed diplomat Rajendra (‘Raju’) Coomaraswamy and his sister is human rights activist Radhika Coomaraswamy who is now a member of the Constitutional Council. In his youth, he also captained Sri Lanka at rugger. Of course, Coomaraswamy is not being appointed for his family ties or his sporting prowess and his career and banking credentials are equally impressive.
( July 7, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A controversy that the government was embroiled in right from its inception has hopefully come to an end with the appointment of Indrajith Coomaraswamy as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, succeeding the controversial Arjuna Mahendran.
Various interpretations are being given to this saga with some portraying the long drawn out tussle for the Governorship as being a battle of wits between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe but in the end, if it was indeed such a contest, the outcome was not a victory for either of them but an honourable ‘draw’.
From the very outset, Arjuna Mahendran’s appointment had question marks written all over it simply because he was a Singaporean citizen. Singapore does not permit dual citizenship, so he could not obtain Sri Lankan citizenship without foregoing his Singaporean passport. Since he was handpicked for the job by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, the Premier’s critics were quick to query the wisdom of appointing a non-Sri Lankan to a position of immense national significance where he would be charting the course of the country’s economy.
That was only the tip of the iceberg. When it was revealed that Mahendran presided over the Central Bank at a time when a company where his son-in-law had a substantial interest was dealing in Treasury Bonds, all hell broke loose. The allegation was that due to transactions handled by this company, the government may have incurred a substantial loss of revenue running in to billions of rupees.
Mahendran’s predicament
The matter is still under investigation and the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) is dealing with it. And, as Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has been at pains to point out, Mahendran, like anyone else, is entitled to the presumption of innocence until any charges against him are proven. Nevertheless, even if justice is done in this instance, it wouldn’t appear to be done as long as he continued to head the Central Bank.
Meanwhile, the issue was snowballing into a major embarrassment for the government which promised ‘good governance’ as its slogan. The faction of the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) loyal to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa attempted to gain political capital out of Mahendran’s predicament at the August 2015 general election.
Indeed some estimated that at the poll, the United National Front (UNF) probably lost about five seats- and quite possible a simple majority in Parliament- due to this issue rankling voters who would have otherwise voted for them.
Post-election, it was not only the Rajapaksa faction of the UPFA that was demanding Mahendran’s ouster. Even UPFA ministers loyal to President Sirisena were asking that Mahendran be removed from office because his presence at the Central Bank in the midst of the allegations against him was sullying the government’s reputation.
In hindsight, the whole issue could have been nipped in the bud without embarrassing Mahendran. That was because he had been appointed only for the remainder of the tenure of his predecessor Ajith Nivard Cabraal who had resigned when the new government assumed office. That period was coming to an end on June 30 and Mahendran could have been nudged in to not extending his term of office.
Career and banking credentials
As speculation was mounting over the issue, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was of the opinion that since no charges against Mahendran had been proved, a suitable compromise would be for him to ‘step down’ from office until investigations into the allegations against him were completed. He wanted someone to ‘act’ as Governor in the interim.
The Premier would have had an expectation that Mahendran would eventually be exonerated and could resume his office. As such, the Prime Minister had proposed his confidante and one-time Secretary to the Treasury Charitha Ratwatte to take over the job. Meanwhile, the media went in to speculation mode, touting the names of potential contenders and splashing their pictures and bio-data on the front pages of newspapers.
What apparently painted a picture of conflict was President Sirisena’s announcement both on social media and then at a meeting in Girandurukotte on Wednesday last week that ‘a Governor would be appointed in a few hours’- a plan that was obviously not discussed in detail with the Prime Minister. When the President arrived at the Central Bank, he found Prime Minister Wickremesinghe hot on his heels. There have been reports that the President had an appointment letter for Nandalal Weerasinghe, who is presently the bank’s Deputy Governor. However, following discussions with the Prime Minister, the duo left the bank without making any appointment or announcement.
The appointment of Indrajith Coomaraswamy followed a few days later. Whoever came up with Coomaraswamy’s name should be commended as he is the ideal ‘compromise’ candidate, a gentleman with a track record as an economist that few can complain about. Coomaraswamy hails from a distinguished family: his father was famed diplomat Rajendra (‘Raju’) Coomaraswamy and his sister is human rights activist Radhika Coomaraswamy who is now a member of the Constitutional Council. In his youth, he also captained Sri Lanka at rugger. Of course, Coomaraswamy is not being appointed for his family ties or his sporting prowess and his career and banking credentials are equally impressive.
Coomaraswamy was employed at the Central Bank for more than one and a half decades and then served at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London for nearly twenty years where he rose through the ranks to hold the post of Deputy-Director of the Secretary-General’s Office. In the brief UNF led government of 2001-2004, he was an advisor to Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on economic affairs.
What the appointment of Coomaraswamy did was to nip in the bud what could have been a massive political embarrassment for the government, particularly for President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. The President was being blamed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) rank and file for not being decisive enough and the Prime Minister was being taken to task for persisting with Mahendran when that did not seem the ‘proper’ thing to do.
At least two leading members of the so-called Rajapaksa faction of the UPFA, Dinesh Gunewardena and Bandula Gunewardena have commended Coomaraswamy’s appointment. However the ‘usual suspects’, Udaya Gammanpila and Wimal Weerawansa have been quick to condemn him too, raising concerns about his period as an employee of an organisation owned by Raj Rajaratnam, who is now in jail in the United States on charges of insider trading. Rajaratnam is also alleged to have funded organisations linked to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Rajapaksa dispensation
Gammanpila-having himself been recently released from custody on bail over charges of fraud that are pending- rather pathetically tried to portray Coomaraswamy as a ‘Tiger’ agent. This was a clear indication of how the so-called Joint Opposition was hell bent on politicising the issue without any scruples.
In his first media briefing on Tuesday, Coomaraswamy calmly explained his links with Rajaratnam and the role he played as his employee. He was disarmingly frank and noted that Rajaratnam ‘did a lot of good things’ and had helped Sri Lanka. “That was the Rajaratnam I knew,” he said.
The new Governor’s candour and his impressive credentials will no doubt help the government ride out this storm. Critics such as Gammanpila are fast losing their credibility because one of his observations was that Coomaraswamy is sixty-years-old and ‘would not be able to handle a nationally responsible job because at that age he would lack the physical and mental fitness for it’. Gammanpila appears to have conveniently forgotten that Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose comeback he is yearning for is nearing his seventy first birthday in a few months!
After many months of indecision, the government appears to have resolved this crisis at long last. It may have also learnt that sometimes, it may be easier to compromise rather than to dig its heels in. Coomaraswamy has already indicated that he has been asked both by the President and the Prime Minister to perform without fear or favour and he is certainly the type of person who would do so.
There are many advocates of ‘Yahapaalanaya’ who blame the powers that be for letting this issue spiral out of control. As for those who defend ‘Yahapaalanaya’ come what may, they pose the question as to whether such a change in a high office would ever be possible under the Rajapaksa dispensation. That too is a question that is not irrelevant.
