Talking Greek!

• Says loss Rs. 2 b from bond investment
• Dr. de Silva charges that Govt. is misleading Parliament
• Alleges transaction not passed by CB Monetary Board

By Uditha Jayasinghe

After not being allowed to discuss the Greek bond issue in Parliament, Opposition MP Dr. Harsha de Silva yesterday alleged that the country had lost an estimated Rs. 2 billion in the questionable transaction and that a senior Government representative was misleading the House to keep the issue under wraps.

United National Party (UNP) MP Dr. Harsha de Silva told reporters that the investment of an estimated Rs. 3.4 billion had been done without presenting the proposal to the Monetary Board of the Central Bank. He also alleged that it was authorised only by the Central Bank Governor, a Deputy Governor and an Assistant Governor from the monetary authority, contravening all procedure set in place through authorisation by Parliament.

“When this issue was raised in Parliament on 17 July by UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Senior Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama in response stated that only US$ 6.5 million was lost to the country.

We later found that this is not true and that as much as Euro 30 million may have been invested. We do not know for sure because the Government is not answering our questions,” he said.

In a long-drawn-out explanation, Dr. de Silva then emphasised how the collapse of Greece was widely publicised and rating agencies had devalued their bonds to the point of being termed as “junk bonds” when the Government had made the decision to invest.

According to him, the Sri Lankan Government had made the investment on 5 April 2011 and Dr. Amunugama had subsequently defended it in Parliament saying that the large amount of bailout funds released by the International Monetary Fund and other organisations were expected to honour the bond payments.

“But on 24 March a document was released by the European Union stating that these bailout funds would give priority to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which was used to stabilise the Eurozone and reduce the impact of the Greece fallout from spreading. There is no mention that it will be used for repayment of bonds. Yet the Central Bank proceeded with the investment. We need to know why they did this in contravention of all advice and commonsense.”

Dr. de Silva also called on the Government to reveal the “agents” who brokered the deal, as mentioned by Dr. Amunugama in Parliament, and who their local representatives were. He reiterated that the Government was ignoring all economic good governance practices.

“It’s the same culprits who are behind all these shady deals,” he charged, referring to the questionable market investments made by the Employee Provident Fund and other issues that have been raised by him in the recent past.

Parliament on Tuesday was adjourned when the issue of Greek bond investments was taken up, with the Government insisting that it was a sub judice matter since a petition had already been filed regarding the transaction. Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa therefore moved that the matter could not be discussed since it was before Court.

“The questions that we want answered have nothing to do with what is before Court. What we want to know is why Parliament was misled by Dr. Amunugama. The Government is intentionally hiding this from the people by not allowing Parliament to discuss it. Actions of this nature are extremely detrimental to this country’s future.”