A motion was filed in the Supreme Court this week on the Sri Lanka Insurance(SLI) privatization case by petitioner Vasudeva Nanayakkara who submitted letters to the heads of several government departments and other institutions to take action by prosecuting those found to have committed wrongful, unlawful, illegal or fraudulent acts and those who have abided and abetted therewith, as laid out in the June 4, 2009 judgment.
The case was mentioned in the Supreme Court this Thursday before a bench comprising Supreme Court justices G. Amaratunga, K. Sripavan, P.A. Ratnayake. M.A. Sumanthiran who appeared for the petitioner told the Court the letters submitted to the Deputy Inspector General of Police CID, Chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) and the Exchange Controller may have triggered an incident involving a lorry entering the SLI premises on Wednesday morning in an attempt to move several files and documents off the premises.
Database
The 13th respondent in the case, Nihal Sri Ameresekere who supported the petition, informed the Court on Thursday that a fair amount of funds had been moved out of SLI in addition to a valuable database. Mr. Ameresekere said if data was taken out or manipulated, SLI’s whole viability would be violated. He mentioned that he heard of this happening last year although he had no proof.
Mr. Ameresekere added that the database was moved to two companies called Bell Solutions and Bell Vantage and should be brought back to SLI. He said the Court should make an appropriate order to ensure that SLI gets control of the database.
Mr. Ameresekere also recommended that the Auditor General perform an audit of the SLI accounts from April 11, 2003 (date of privatization) to June 4, 2009 (date of judgment) to ascertain the profits. According to the judgment, Milford Holdings, the purchaser will be able to keep the company profits in lieu of the interest from the treasury bonds for Rs.6.05 billion which is the purchase price. The Court directed the Treasury Secretary to make sure that the SLI profits were computed and audited from the last audited balance sheet by the Auditor General.
Letters
The Court recorded that complaints had been made to the DIG of Police CID, Chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the Chairman of the SEC, President of the ICASL and the Exchange Controller and that the petitioner should proceed with the matter although the Court based no order on it. All of the above are statutory institutes with quasi-judicial power.
ccording to the letter sent to the Exchange Controller by Abdeen Associates on behalf of Mr. Nanayakkara, the petitioner drew attention specifically to the sourcing of questionable and unidentified funds through Hatton National Bank Ltd, amounting to arund US$10 million by CT Smith Stock Brokers acting in concert with other parties referred to in the judgment, namely Greenfield Pacific EM Holdings incorporated in Gibraltar, whose beneficial owner is not disclosed and is registered at Asia Box Consultants (Pte) Ltd., Singapore.
New Board of Directors
The Court allowed the Treasury Secretary Sumith Abeysinghe until June 2, 2009 to submit his recommendations for a new board of directors for SLI. Mr. Abeysinghe had requested more time. Mr. Ameresekere added that the directors should not be involved with any of the institutes affected by the judgment.
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