News
Auditor General refutes Finance Minister’s allegations
Auditor General (AG) Gamini Wijesinghe who came under fire this week from Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, said he had followed proper procedure when submitting a report on the Treasury Bond (TB) issues, and refuted allegations he had submitted the Report without signing it.
“In a letter the Finance Minister wrote to me this week, he acknowledged receiving the Report on January 17. It was duly signed and submitted according to proper procedure,” Mr Wijesinghe told the Sunday Times.
The Finance Minister this week in Parliament accused the AG of making the Report public through the media, without first submitting it to him, and also said the Report had not been signed.
However, the Report was made available to the public on the AG Dept’s official website. It was also submitted to Speaker Karu Jayasuirya as well as COPE Chairman, MP Sunil Handunnetti, and was quoted during a debate in Parliament on irregularities in issuance of TB issues.
The AG, in his Report, said he could not spend adequate time in preparing a report on the accounts of the Public Debt Dept of the Central Bank, relating to the direct placements in government securities between 2008 to 2016, “due to the impatience and the unethical reminders of the Minister of Finance.”
Mr Wijesinghe said he had received at least four letters from the Minister since August last year, asking him to expedite the preparation of the Report. The Minister in his letters had accused the AG’s Dept of showing haste in preparing the Report of the controversial TB issue of February 2015, but was dragging its feet on the report he had requested.
However, the AG said he had taken three months to prepare the previous report that probed only two TB issues, while during the period 2008-2016, there had been more than 2,000 TB transactions, and there was painstaking work to be done to get the report duly completed.
“I am like the doctor who has been asked to do a postmortem. They want the postmortem done but, when they see its findings, they are unhappy, and try to destroy the credibility of the doctor,” Mr Wijesinghe said.
The AG’s Report on the Central Bank’s direct placements in government securities between 2008 and 2016, can be accessed at www.auditorgeneral.gov.lk.