Editorial Courtesy The Island

Monday 18th September, 2017

September 17, 2017, 8:52 pm
How the treasury bond rackets were planned and carried out has come to light thanks to a process of witnesses ratting on their bosses before the ongoing presidential commission of inquiry. It was recently revealed that Perpetual Treasuries (Pvt.) Ltd. (PTL) owner, Arjun Aloysius, had lied to the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) on bond rackets. He is also alleged to have received inside information from the Central Bank, which was, at that time, headed by his father-in-law, Arjuna Mahendran, and made huge profits at the expense of some state banks and the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF).

Only the names of the ruling politicians at whose behest the bond scams were carried out are to be officially revealed for the presidential probe to be considered complete. But, now that Aloysius has been allowed to refrain from testifying, his father-in-law, may also choose to remain silent. Thus, the names of the errant political grandees behind the bond scams are not likely to be revealed. The JVP, with the acquiescence of some cantankerous Joint Opposition (JO) parliamentarians, ensured that the names of political leaders would not be mentioned in the report issued by the COPE, headed by MP Sunil Handunnetti. Thus, the yahapalana leaders have succeeded in making the buck stop at PTL and making its owner the fall guy, so to speak.

The question is whether Aloysius has committed contempt of parliament by lying to the COPE and, thereby, preventing it from carrying out its duties and functions properly. It may be recalled that the Central Bank was forced to withdraw a report which effectively demolished the arguments put forth by a group of UNP MPs in the form of footnotes in the aforesaid COPE report. The government argued that public officials could not challenge the findings of a parliamentary committee. A committee, headed by the Secretary to the Prime Minister, was appointed to investigate and find out whether the Central Bank officials responsible for countering the UNP MPs’ footnotes had violated parliamentary privileges. The committee report has since been shelved, but the government has been able to suppress the counterarguments put forth by the Central Bank professionals.

The government claims to practise the Licchavi method in tackling problems—assembling peacefully, deliberating peacefully and dispersing peacefully. But, the very obverse thereof is used if violence unleashed against strikers and protesting students is anything to go by. As for the bond scams, the government seems to have adopted one of the methods Devadatte used in a bid to harm the Buddha, but in vain. The legend has it that Devadatte positioned a line of archers one behind the other with each of them carrying a secret order to kill the one immediately in front of him in case of the first archer accomplishing his mission. Devadatte was to kill the last archer so that the truth would never get out. Thankfully, his plan came a cropper. The yahapalana leaders who had the biggest ever financial fraud in the country committed may not have been able to silence all witnesses, one by one; but they have succeeded in effectively suppressing the truth by silencing the most important witness albeit through non-violent means.

Meanwhile, the SLFP (Maithripala Faction) may be able to absolve itself of the responsibility for the bond scams through the ongoing presidential probe, but it won’t be able to tame the UNP by implicating its leaders in the rackets owing to what looks like omerta (a code of silence among Mafiosi as regards criminal activity and their refusal to provide information to authorities) practised by key witnesses in the bond probe. Dependent on the UNP for its political survival vis-a-vis the JO’s relentless efforts to wrest control of the SLFP, the Maithri faction is now as vulnerable as a person who ‘makes an abortive attempt to kill a cobra and provokes it in the process’.