World Bank says not assessing AG report on bond issue

The World Bank on Thursday denied reports that it has undertaken an assessment of the Auditor General’s report on the controversial Treasury bond issue.
“In reference to some of the incorrect statements carried by a few media outlets on this issue, the World Bank wishes to clarify that it has not undertaken any assessment of the Auditor General’s report on the bond Issue,” the bank said in short, one-line statement issued in Colombo. It was unclear where such media reports had appeared.
The only time the bank is known to have commented on the controversial bond issue involving former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran and his son in law Arjun Aloysius, was in a December 7, 2016 response to the Prime Minister’s Secretary which stated that “Regarding your request for comments in the above mentioned letter, we are not aware of international best practices to accurately calculate the potential loss in the case of the past bond auction. Accurately quantifying the loss would require knowledge of the actual cost of the bond placement under non-competitive allocations (a necessary counterfactual). In our view that counterfactual cannot be accurately calculated on an ex post basis as it depends on the marker conditions on the auction date”. The letter, published in some news websites, has not been denied by the bank. – ENDS-