By Lucien Rajakarunanayake Courtesy The Island

December 1, 2017, 10:14 pm

* Bond…Bond…here we come.

There is nothing as good as Bondage…which seems to be the new thinking of the UNP.

The Prime Minister wants to have a special probe into the Treasury Bond sales from 2008 to 2014 – that involves many billions of rupees.

Looks like the party that was not at all pleased with the Bond Commission that completed it hearings with the Prime Minister’s clarifications, is now in an elephantine mood to go on with bond probes as the stuff of new politics.

Will every one of these future probes involve COPE too?

Whether there are COPE inquiries or not, will the near-front and backbench members of the UNP have extended telephone chats with whoever happens to be the suspect dealers in the bond deals of the past?

This is certainly a new swing in the politics of coalition, the search for a balance of party interests. The President, who leads the official SLFP that is part of the ruling coalition – mainly comprising creeps into Cabinet positions – brought about the Bond Probe which, intentionally or not, exposed much of the Dirty Bondage of the UNP.

It has raised huge questions as to why the UNP Prime Miniter took the Central Bank under his ministry, away from the Finance Ministry: Why it was so keen to retain Arjuna Mahendran as the Central Bank Governor, when his name was associated with the in-law relationship in Treasury Bond fraud.

We also saw how the UNP Finance Minister did his own dirty meddling with the Bond auctions, asking State banks to make lower bids. That should place him in more than political bondage, but he remains a leading member of the UNP. It is not clear whether his status in the UNP leadership line has anything to do with the Rs million plus rent paid for his Penthouse delight by none other Bond Fraud Aloysius, entirely without his knowledge.

If this is the stuff of Bond probing of the UNP, are we to believe that any bond crooks of previous years, and the family regime/politics of the past, would fare any worse than the Forgetul Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake?

The Prime Minister has said that bond sales of the past, done on private placements, had used EPF, ETF and the National Savings Bank funds as captive sources. That is quite a revelation and deserves full exposure. Yet, how about acting much sooner on the evidence already available on how the EPF was made to lose in the auction deals done under the Arjuna/Arjun – Mahendran/Aloysius in-law-business of outlaw deals, where the EPF was prevented from initial bids at bond auctions?

Will it be necessary to have a separate probe, by a parliamentary committee of any others, to know how much of the savings of private and state sector employees were swindled through Arjuna/Arjun Crooked Bonding?

What will be the stuff of the new probes into the old bond sales?

Will it begin with a report from pre-UNP lawyers, which will somehow fail to learn of any frauds in the former deals? Or, better still, will there be a pro-Rajapaksa Regime – SLFP lawyers’ team to do the initial probe, and come out with a similar result? That is the stuff of an initial Ranil Probe.

There is plenty of politics on the Prime Minister’s call for more Bond probes. It could very well be the stuff of the UNP campaign in the coming Local Govt polls, if there are no other petitions, possibly to an Indian deity, or the smashing of post-budget-price coconuts at every devale to postpone the polls.

The UNP must certainly be planning to take the bond rackets of the past to the public in the polls campaign, because any exposure that comes about former bond deals, can affect the former Finance Minister – Mahinda Rajapaksa, who delightfully leads the Lotus Bud front.

The UNP also has the chance of making another hit at an undeclared but not unknown rival – the SLFP creeps within the Yahapalanaya; because any bond frauds that took place from 2008 tp 2014, were part of the huge corruption of the Rajapaksa Regime they were all part of with great delight. All Ministers of that regime.

We are certainly moving into a new era of politics, where Bond Frauds emerge as the stuff of political rivalry. It is a rivalry that moves from and with in-laws and outlaws, as well the telephone cacophony of pro-Ranil drum beaters of the UNP.

Let’s live through this new Bond Age in the politics of Sri Lanka!