CIFL depositors invoke RTI Act to seek the truth
Through the Right to Information law, the Central Investment and Finance Ltd Depositors Association (CIFLDA) has requested the Central Bank (CB) to provide details of a Monetary Board meeting which decided to pay only Rs. 600,000 to the depositors indicated through a subsequent media release.
The earlier decision of the CB through a media release had been to pay all the deposits with interest.
Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) is now supporting the CIFLDA to get this information and appear before the Right to Information (RTI) Commission.
Recently the 5th AGM of the CIFLDA was held at the Colombo Public Library and at the AGM, Ms. Sankhitha Gunaratne, Manager, Right to Information (TISL) indicated that the TISL is intervening and assisting the CIFLDA to get this information through the RTI Commission.
She said that the CB has declined to produce the notes to the RTI Commission indicating that as there are court cases on these issues that the issue of that information would affect those cases.
Ms. Gunaratne said that the CB cannot refuse the information and whether the information affects the court case would be decided by the Commission, once the information is submitted to the Commission. The Commission has instructed the CB to produce the information at the next hearing on November 2.
W. Gunawardene, President, CIFLDA told the Business Times on the sidelines of the AGM that they have taken a decision to sue the CIFL for the recovery of the deposits because according to the Prescription Ordinance they would have to take legal action before 2019.
He accused the CB, the custodian of the depositors of their money, of not acting responsibly and said in many instances ‘wangu gahanawa’ (avoided mandated responsibility) and most unreliable of the CB decisions in safeguarding their investments where they could not have any hopes.
But he indicated that there appears to be a silver lining as they could place some reliance on the Minister of Finance as at the last meeting they had with the Minister, he had instructed his Secretary to take up this matter at the next meeting of the Monetary Board to explore the possibility of getting some relief to these depositors.
Mr. Gunawardene said that in fact the Finance Minister was to be present at this AGM and he has indicated that if he could not come he would at least detail his Deputy Minister to attend, but none appeared at the AGM.
He said that if the CB fully implemented the payment of Rs. 600,000 and below out of their membership of more than 4,000 members, 61 per cent would be fully paid. But said no proper modalities have been announced by the CB and out of more than 2,000 members only about 200 to 300 have received the cheques.
Now, the task of the association is to obtain the deposit money of the depositors who have invested bigger amounts over and above Rs. 600,00, Mr Gunawardene pointed out and said that on their payment the CB has only indicated that this money is paid only after the liquidation of CIFL, that is by disposing the assets of the company.
He indicated that there are several court cases pending and they consume a lot of money as legal fees, etc and in some cases the company was bearing these costs. Since the company premises has been sealed by the CB and its accounts frozen, the company is unable to pay but the company and the CIFLDA wants to bear these (legal) costs otherwise these cases might fail.
He said that the company has sued Aspic Homes (Pvt) Ltd which has Rs. 4.2 billion of CIFL assets to be recovered which money after realising these assets could be used to pay depositors money. If the case fails these assets would not be recovered.
As more than half of the members would now be paid fully (Rs. 600,000 and below) the enthusiasm and vigour and vitality of the AGM appeared to be that spirited and future campaigning would become difficult as the support of the larger investors would not be forthcoming compared to the smaller investors.