President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday met desperate depositors of finance and real estate companies under the collapsed Ceylinco Group and offered them Treasury Bills in lieu of their losses.
However only a group representing the Golden Key (GK) Depositors Association said it would consider the offer while groups representing depositors from Ceylinco Shriram and F&G said they preferred to wait for the verdict of court cases filed by them for the return
of their deposits, according to Anusha Emmert, President of the GK Association.
The President met representatives of thousands of depositors from the failed fianance companies which owe a total of Rs 25.8 billion of borrowed money.
The companies collapsed like a pack of cards last year immediately following the Sakvithi finance scam.
Ms Emmert said the President, flanked by Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, Attorney General Mohan Peiris, Central Bank Governor Ajit Nivard Cabraal and others, noted that while Golden Key alone owed depositors Rs 13 billion, its assets were worth only Rs 2.5 billion.
“The President told us that Treasury Bills to this value (of the assets) could be issued to depositors while the balance (Rs 10.5 billion) has to be obtained from Ceylinco Chairman Lalith Kotelawala,” she said, after the meeting at Temple Trees.
The Ceylinco chief was recently released after several months in remand prison. The GK depositors group said it would consult its depositor-members on the presidential offer.
Ceylinco Shriram has dues totalling Rs 4.6 billion and F&G dues at Rs 8.2 billion, according to figures given by the Central Bank. |
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