Excerpt from Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake's special statement in Parliament

Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake today explaining the reasons for this resignation from the cabinet position said his actions were aimed at protecting the Good Governance government and the party.

Excerpts from the statement to Parliament follows:

In view of various press reports and comments made in parliament and the fact that I have made a statement before the commission inquiring into the Bond issue I wish to place the facts fore Parliament.

Since there was repair at our house we needed to shift and accordingly  a house owned by Mr Nahil Wijesuriya’s daughter was leased out through  Arjun Aloysisu’s company. The money was reimbursed later and eventually purchased through a loan from the Seylan Bank.

I spent my own money instead of earning through politics.

We know how prime ministers acted. Presidents acted like kings. They still try to hide from the law. But we respect the law and that I went before the Commission to give evidence creating a new political culture.

At the Bond commission the judges involved in several times regarding the way the State Additional solicitor general that represented the Attorney General’s department questioned me and they advised him. I’m sure that the judges at the Bond commission will work unbiased and find the truth.

Now a freedom is there even to the Attorney generals department to aggressively question a minister of the same government. Those days the Attorney generals department didn’t have the freedom not to question a minister but even to open a file regarding a minister.

We want to  request from the AG department to work in the same quick way regarding the loans taken by the country and to continue this efficiency to find the corruption done by ministers in the previous government and to take immediate steps regarding the 87 files that were handed over to the AG department by the FCID after completing the investigation. 

In the past there has been cases were filed against me for false allegations.  Attempts were made to  arrest me. I was implicated for an exchange fraud for 10 years. Finally I was acquitted. Indrajit Coomaraswamy that worked with Raj Rajarathnam who was charged in that court case is the CB governor now.

In the presidential election in 2015 we believed that to defeat the Rajapaksa regime all the progressive powers should unite and said a common candidate should be brought forward. It was me that gave the symbol of the swan for the presidential election when Maithripala Sirisena was nominated as the common candidate. I did all of them for the future of the country.

I used my portfolio to serve the public. To do the justice for the party supporters who faced various injustices for about 20 years.

These positions, power etc are temporary. What is eternal is the service we did and the our good qualities and our honesty. But many do not understand this. They think that their posts are eternal. Power is eternal. Thus, they dream about power even after they were removed from power. They do any cheap thing to take power. They are not worried of what happens to the country if they get power.

I feel, there is a conspiracy to de-stabilize the ‘Yahapalana Government’ based on the allegations against me.

There is an attempt   destabilize the democratic process  followed by  President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe . Those who are  behind the conspiracy are those rejected by the people, those accused of corruption, fraud and crime. They are trying to regain power to avoid being penalized for the offences.

We cannot allow power – hungry conspirators to destroy the UNP. We cannot allow them to destroy the Yahapalana government . We cannot allow to destablise the democratic process followed by President and the Prime Minister. We cannot allow to weaken the efforts to rebuild the country destroyed by the dictator Rajapaksa regime.

Therefore setting an example to the country I have decided to resign from the post of the minister