Top official should have been charged for fraud, corruption
View(s):PSC report reveals Janaka Ratnayake was not ‘fit and proper’ to serve in any capacity
By Bandula Sirimanna
Janaka Ratnayake, an influential Sri Lankan Government official was reprimanded and labelled ‘not fit and proper (to serve in any position)’ and accused of corruption, the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) report on the impeachment probe against former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake has revealed.
Mr Ratnayake, a former chairman of the Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL), former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EBD) and current Chairman -Trillium Residencies, was severely reprimanded by Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, a PSC member, for offering discounts of Trillium apartments to friends or relatives.
“You can sell apartments at half the price, quarter of the price because you are in a position of the Trustee? This means that you have sought some advantage of this transaction. So, you are guilty as a Trustee. I think you are guilty of a very, very grave offence that we have to recommend,”
Minister de Silva is quoted as saying in the report.
Informed sources said that Mr Ratnayake resigned from the EDB soon after the PSC probe ended.
In evidence before the PSC, Mr Ratnayake was grilled on the transaction involving a discount given to Ms Bandaranayake for a Trillium apartment and in the process said discounts were given to other ‘known’ parties as well, in clear violation of a Supreme Court ruling that Trillium apartments should be sold at the highest price.
Supreme Court Judge Shirani Tilakawardene, in her submission to the PSC, said that when Mr. Ratnayake as MBSL Chairman was asked to transfer 500,000 shares to the Merchant Bank, “Mr. Ratnayake took that and put it into his own personal account.”
She said this was a fraud and he was ordered to return the shares. “He is not a fit and proper person. Here, we were looking for one thing – people who are going to be honest, who are sacrificial and who think of the depositors. I was later told that he became Chairperson of Trillium Residencies,” she said.
The PSC report reveals that the plight of over 9,000 depositors of collapsed Golden key Credit Card Company (GK) could have been averted if the Central Bank (CB) didn’t in November 2006 stop a special investigation into the failed company, two years before it crashed. The probe had been carried out during the tenure of former Governor Sunil Mendis and soon after he quit in 30th June 2006, it was discontinued during the period of Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal who took over on 1st July of the same year. (See Page 8 for the Central Bank explanation on this issue).
Justice Tilakawardene disclosed that if appropriate action had been taken at that time, the present plight of the depositors could have been averted. Investigations had been carried out by the Monetary Board during the time of then Governor Sunil Mendis and it was discontinued after his retirement, she said.
In response to a question by Minister de Silva during the PSC probe, she said, “The Special Investigation Unit of the Central Bank had gone into the accounts of Golden Key because there were many petitions that had been sent. When, analyzing those, they found that there was a big financial problem in the Golden Key Credit Card Company, but no action was taken.” At the hearing of the GK Fundamental Rights case on 23rd March 2009, the Supreme Court ordered the Director of the Monetary Board, to submit a report to the Monetary Board, on the basis of the investigations done by the special investigation officers in respect of the activities of GK.Failure to take action by Central Bank officers in 2006 amounts to a prima facia case, in respect of the violation of the petitioners’ right to equality before the law, the Court then ruled.
Following this ruling made by the then Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva there was no response till the startling revelation made again by Justice Tilakawardene on the 7th of December 2012 at the PSC hearings.
The investigations unit headed by the Central Bank’s Investigation Section Director found that GK was accepting deposits without a license and compiled a detailed report on GK’s violations of the Finance Companies Act.
However before the report could be presented to the Monetary Board it was alleged that Lalith Kotelawala paid senior politicians to negotiate with the Central Bank on his behalf and the 2006 report was swept under the carpet, GK depositors alleged at that time.
Chairperson of GK All Depositors Association Dushyanthi Hapugoda alleged that Central Bank officials colluded with representatives of GK to enable the company to keep functioning.
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