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Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy speaks with Voice Against Corruption Convener Wasantha Samarasinghe after protestors were allowed inside – Damith Wickramasinghe
By Shanika Sriyananda
Trade unions stepped up the battle for accountability yesterday with hundreds of members staging a demonstration at Fort calling on the Central Bank Governor to initiate an internal investigation into the alleged bond scam under his predecessor Arjuna Mahendran.
The employees representing the JVP-backed Inter Company Employees’ Union (ICEU) and belonging to 200 private sector companies defied police to demonstrate at Fort and marched to the Central Bank to meet Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy where eight members of the union were allowed inside.
These included Voice Against Corruption Convener Wasantha Samarasinghe and ICEU General Secretary Janaka Adhikari.
During the half hour discussion union members requested the Governor to assist in clearing the name of the Central Bank and initiating an investigation and push for legal accountability.
“We asked him whether he was given the task of delaying taking legal action during his tenure. He asked us to submit evidence for the allegations. But we refused his request urging him to answer the questions that we raised in our last letter,” Samarasinghe told the Daily FT.
Samarasinghe accused Dr. Coomaraswamy of trying to protect the culprits, including Mahendran and his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius.
“We will not let them ignore this Bond Scam which incurred an estimated loss of Rs. 145 billion during the last two years and a loss of over Rs. 15 billion to the Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF). They cannot simply play with the hard-earned money of EPF members,” he said.
The Central Bank Governor has been requested to provide answers to a series of questions from the union. These include details of the total amount of investments made by the EPF from 1 January 2015 to 30 June 2016, the total amount of investments in Treasury Bills and Bonds in the Primary Market made by the EPF during the same period, the necessary approvals obtained for each of those bond investments from the Investment Committee of the EPF and a list of mitigating actions taken by Dr. Coomaraswamy.
In response, Dr. Coomaraswamy had informed the members of a slew of checks and balances put in place by him to prevent transgressions. According to Samarasinghe, the Governor had requested the ICEU to give him a week to respond to their list of queries.
“We hope that he will answer these simple questions within the week. If not, we will look into the possibilities of taking legal action over the alleged bond scam.”
CB sells $ 225 m bonds
The Central Bank this week sold $ 225 million worth of bonds at one-year, two-year and 38-month maturation, it said in an announcement yesterday.
Sri Lanka sold $ 30 million of 12-month development bonds at a six-month LIBOR + floating rate of 300 bps, $ 118 million of 38-month development bonds at a six-month LIBOR + floating rate of 375.55 bps and $ 85 million of 24-month development bonds at a six-month LIBOR + floating rate of 335 bps.
The amount offered for bids was $ 225 million and accepted the same number of bids.
