Where is Rohan Perera?

Where is Rohan Perera, the chief of the failed Pramuka Bank? According to some reports, he is somewhere in Europe hiding away from Sri Lankan investigators probing the country’s biggest banking scams in recent history.

Even as the Central Bank moved to take over the bank in 2002, Perera, sensing authorities were planning to arrest him, vanished abroad without a trace until he surfaced through a newspaper interview published in Europe. Police are still hunting the former CEO and Interpol is on his trail.

Wherever he is, this week’s decision by the Central Bank to finally hand over all assets and liabilities of Pramuka to the newly formed Sri Lanka Savings Bank would be of significant interest to the on-the-run former chief executive. Whether he is relieved that the saga is finally over remains to be seen.

Yet for thousands of depositors, many of them in the 60-70 year age bracket, this is indeed welcome news. For nearly five years they have been running in circles – some even committed suicide – desperate to recover their deposits. They watched on helplessly as Central Bank officials hemmed and hawed in efforts to re-start the bank or give the depositors their dues.

The Sunday Times FT was in the forefront of the campaign to ensure justice for many of the depositors who invested their only savings including lump-sum pensions. There was no one they could turn to except the newspapers and our newspaper filled that vacuum. The bank had lent more than its assets (including deposits) and would have crashed if not for the Central Bank stepping in. There was enough evidence to show that the bank was indeed in the red long before the near crash and that the auditors were also to blame for not raising issues of bad loans in the annual reports.

While we have fielded calls from various depositors over the years for any positive news as to when the failed bank would resume or when depositors would be returned their monies, there has been one elderly depositor who has consistently relied on this newspaper for information – in the absence of anyone else he could turn to. This is an assurance that “Sir … we are still there for you and would help to bring you news of the new bank and its developments.”

In fact he alerted us to a previous announcement by the present administration of the new bank opening when it was not done on the due date. That led to a follow up on the SLSB and possible new opening dates.

One of the positive developments from this unfortunate saga is how some depositors got together and formed an association representing their interests. In a rare campaign – which eventually led to the present government taking action -- the Pramuka Bank Depositors Association took the fight to the authorities, pushing, urging, cajoling. Court cases were filed and a number of meetings were held by the association, an example as to how a group of depositors refused to take things lying down. They negotiated with three governments – UNP, SLFP-PA and the present coalition – for redress and even proposed ways of reviving the failed bank. Finally with the help of Wijedasa Rajapakse, when he was minister in charge of banking development, a proposal to set up a new savings bank emerged leading to the formation of the SLSB.

The drama however hasn’t ended. There are disputes between the Central Bank and the SLSB as to when the bank could open for public business while our story also says bad debts totalling around Rs 2.2 billion were forced to be written off.

Nevertheless aggrieved depositors can heave a sigh of relief that finally their prayers have been answered.