PM says he instructed Mahendran to follow transparency procedures during bond transactions

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe told the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) appointed to look into alleged malpractices of issuing treasury bonds that he had instructed former Governor of Central Bank (CB) Arjun Mahendran to follow due procedures on transparency when opening private placements for controversial treasury bonds bidding in early 2015. 

Appearing before the Commission, Premier Wickremasinghe said today that there were two transactions worth of Rs 13.5 billion and Rs 15 billion took place at that time to cope up with the serious debt crisis caused by the previous regime's disastrous economic policies.

He said that millions of money that were not allocated in the annual budget or Appropriation Bill was taken away arbitrarily from Central bank during previous regime. 

"As soon as we took the office, we had to dig up all these things to determine what is our debt level in order to recover. That process took up to middle of 2016," he explained to Commission on the condition of the economy at that time. 

Premier Wickremasinghe also pointed out to the commission that new government formulated a fresh economic policy in order to repair it and move forward on a positive path with growth level.