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Millions paid to US lobby firms to do basic embassy work
There were small companies, big companies, medium sized ones. There were others which many on Capitol Hill had not heard of. They drafted media statements, propaganda material, speeches and talking points for Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Washington, DC. They scheduled meetings, made phone calls and sent out emails. They carried out many tasks that well-trained Sri Lankan staff could have done.
The then Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal with Ambassador Jaliya Wickremesuriya at an embassy function in Washington
At any given time between 2008 and the end of last year —more than six years —Sri Lanka’s mission in Washington, the Office of the Monitoring Member of Parliament (MMP) for the Ministry of External Affairs or the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) had on their payroll numerous lobbyists and public relations companies.
In an attempt to unravel just how much was spent on this exercise, the Sunday Times trawled through piles of declarations filed by US lobbyists and other firms under the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The figure was not easily computable. But we got two.
The first amount we arrived at is based entirely on FARA documents. It includes disbursements, which are payments made to a third party by the lobby companies or PR firms and then claimed back from the client. The statistic we have is likely to be much smaller than the actual figure because some facts are not easy to analyse from FARA filings.
There are 14 companies and one person listed under FARA for Sri Lanka. Some companies are remunerated by other companies that hold the direct contracts. Excluding those players, the amount of money spent by Sri Lanka is US$ 5,084,337.88 (Rs. 714,298,628.76). The amount of money spent on subcontracted parties via principal companies is US$ 797,701.64 (Rs. 112,069,103.40).
Ambassador Jaliya Wickremesuriya: US lobby firms were hired to write his speeches that could have been written by well-trained Sri Lankan foreign service officers.
Several weeks of investigations have shown, however, that not all US companies have declared the exact amounts they received. This was particularly true of some firms that were hastily enlisted last year. For instance, Beltway Government Strategies has said it earned US$ 850,000 (Rs. 119,416,500) from the MMP’s office for “general consultative services related to some of (the) foreign principal’s work on Government affairs in the US”.
But documents traced by the Sunday Times showed that its consultant, an American influence-peddler named Imaad Zuberi, had received a total of US$ 6.5 million via the Central Bank. Some of it went to a personal account and the rest to a company he had hurriedly set up. It was called WR Group. It is not known whether Mr Zuberi channeled the money he received to Beltway; or whether that company got its funds separately from CBSL. What is clear, however, is that much of it is now untraceable.
It was similarly found that the Central Bank wired out to Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough, LLP — the company at which MMP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena’s good friend, Vinoda Basnayake, works — US$ 2,650,000 (Rs. 372,298,500)in October last year. The Sunday Times has an invoice for another US$ 1,500,000 payable to the same company. That is a total of US$ 4,150,000 (Rs. 583,033,500).
But Nelson Mullins only declared US$ 70,000 (Rs. 9,834,300) and US$ 175,000 (Rs. 24,585,750) –a total of US$ 245,000. That falls far short of numbers listed in documents we obtained locally. Nelson Mullins received retainers till April this year, even after the Government changed with the election of President Maithripala Sirisena.
Another questionable payment was made out by the Central Bank to a company called Bennett Ridge. As we reported last week, an invoice for US$ 2,000,000 (Rs. 280,980,000)was made out to Bennett Ridge in exchange for consulting and research services for the CBSL. It was dated October 21, 2014. There was an invoice for another US$ 2,000,000 for the same company dated November 14, 2014.
The first payment was stopped by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York because Sri Lanka’s Central Bank — the regulator of the country’s financial sector — failed to fulfill risk management and due diligence requirements. What happened to the second payment is shrouded in obscurity, too.
When all of these numbers are taken into account, the amount of money spent on lobbyists and public relations companies expands by millions of dollars and rupees. But Sri Lankans were ignorant of these facts. Parliament and Cabinet were not consulted and much of the payments — particularly the very large ones last year — were made outside the usual channel; that is, via the Foreign Ministry and the Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington, DC.
Some of the lobby and advocacy deals are complicated. This makes it that much more difficult to “follow the money”. Beltway, for instance, subcontracted five firms (one of them was Nelson Mullins which, nevertheless, was paid directly by the CBSL). One of the other companies was Vigilant Worldwide Communications, LLC, which, in turn engaged a subcontractor.
Beltway also contracted The Madison Group, LLC. The company claims to have delivered services and activities on behalf of, and in conjunction with, the Embassy of Sri Lanka and “The Monitoring Minister of Foreign Affairs”. There is no such designation. But Sri Lankans did not know what Sajin Vass de Gunawardena was supposed to be either.
At the end of 2014, when relations with the US were at an abysmal low, The Madison Group produced several media statements and policy briefs. Propaganda material approved for distribution clearly shows how “policymakers” in Sri Lanka sought to exploit geopolitical sensitivities to draw American investment into Sri Lanka. China comes up repeatedly. “Countries such as China have taken advantage of the US policy of disengagement with Sri Lanka to pursue their own engagement and investment, including deep water port facilities that have pushed China ahead of India as the most important source of foreign investment in Sri Lanka,” one handout reads.
After the Sri Lankan Government ended the war, “the US has moved away from its one-time ally as the single issue of human rights has taken a chokehold on our bilateral relationship. Sri Lanka has no choice but to rely increasingly on other partners, like China, to fill that void.”
The handout refers to “radicalization of Muslims” and to “Buddhist extremism”. The Sri Lankan Government has observed Al Qaida-affiliated “elements” among Pakistani refugees, it states. Meanwhile, the Bodu Bala Sena are “particularly incensed by the outrage of the international community who ignored both the killing of more than 100,000 mostly Sinhalese people by the Tamil Tigers for years, as well as the significant economic, political and social progress the country has made since the war”. Did President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Government lack in-house talent to produce such material at lower cost?
Patton Boggs, where Mr Basnayake worked before leaving for Nelson Mullins (taking the Sri Lankan business with him), had one of the longest contracts with the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington. It lasted from 2009 to 2013. FARA filings show that they received a total of US$ 1,733,157.74 (Rs. 243,491,330.89). Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry records show that it got $211,200,166.25 (Rs.29,671,511,356.46) in lobbying, PR work and legal fees.
Another company that Congressional aides in the US are curious about is Liberty International Group, LLC. It was hired by the CBSL in 2014 but the Sunday Times was unable to trace the original payment documents. Its FARA filings say it got only US$ 180,000 (Rs. 25,288,300) from the Central Bank in May, June and July 2014. It received a further US$ 210,000 (Rs. 29,502,900), some of which it disbursed to a company it subcontracted. This company was called Levick Strategic Communications, LLC.
Among its listed services and activities is “the broadcast of a documentary by the Sri Lankan Government on that country’s civil war and the significant social and economic progress made in post-war Sri Lanka.” It was shown in November and January 2015 on two Washington-based television channels. Airtime cost US$ 10,000 each. Liberty is led by a former Congressman named Connie Mack. Its contract was terminated in January this year.
Some of the tasks carried out by these companies are quite basic. Hedges Strategies was hired in February 2010 to provide “media strategy services” to the Embassy that embrace “headline and media story tracking, speech writing and media research, media outreach and internet services”.
One filing says Hedges Strategies contributed to a weekly country information update and writing speeches and remarks for a variety of activities—“including Sri Lanka’s Independence Day (Feb 4, 2010); a World Bank Sri Lankan food festival (Feb 26, 2010); Ambassador remarks for Sri Lankan Sinhala-Tamil New Year (April 13, 2010); Ambassador remarks for a discussion at the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute (April 29, 2010); Ambassador’s remarks for an Asian arts celebration at the Kennedy Center and George Mason University (May 20, 2010); Ambassador’s speech for a dinner celebrating a first-ever visit to the US by the Sri Lankan national cricket team (May 22, 2010); and Deputy Chief of Mission remarks for several Embassy religious celebrations (Christmas, December 11, 2009), Thai Pongal (Jan 20, 2010) and Vesak (May 31, 2010)”. Were the Ambassador and his staff incapable of doing anything for themselves?
Sri Lanka also engaged companies in Britain and India. A British company called Bell Pottinger employed the Washington-based Qorvis Communications Ltd to work for Sri Lanka in the US. It is unclear how much Bell Pottinger was paid. But it paid Qorvis US$ 93,456 (Rs. 13,129,633.44) on behalf of the Sri Lanka Government. There were also disbursements amounting to US$ 4,521.35, (Rs. 635,204.46) met by Bell. Qorvis got a further US$ 24,914.04 (Rs. 3,500,173.48) between April and September 2010 as expenses claims. The only other payment declared by Qorvis—for what it describes “non-registrable work”—is US$ 5,000 (Rs. 702,450,00). There was no activity for much of this time.
The Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington, DC also employed three American staffers to help with Congressional relations. Only one of them however, has filed declarations under FARA. She is Sienna Brielle Girgenti. She worked at the mission from April 2011, although the exact date of her termination was not immediately available. She has filed details up to September 2013. She was paid a monthly remuneration of US$ 3,999.77 (Rs. 561,927.69) and a total of US$ 119,993 (Rs. 16,857,816.57).
Ms Girgenti is an ex-US Congressional staffer and worked fulltime at the Embassy. During Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya’s time there was another employee called Ms Jenna Ziesenhene. They both left after Mr Wickramasuriya’s extended term as Head of Mission ended.
However, a third staffer called Julianne Mica was hired after his successor took over. This was on the advice of Vass Gunawardena and Thanuja Usliyanage, Lalith Weeratunga’s stepson who worked at the Embassy. A relative of an influential US Republican Senator called John Mica, she left three month ago.
We can’t massage lies: Weeratunga’s lobby claims dismissed“It’s one thing to hire a lobbying firm, to help with communication, but if the Government they represent isn’t making the right kind of changes, the right kind of reforms, it doesn’t matter how good the firm is,” he said, from Washington, DC, requesting anonymity. “They can’t massage lies.” “The current government has been quite successful in communicating what it is doing without having any paid lobbyists, he said. “Most members of Congress and their staff, especially those working on foreign affairs, will always meet with Embassy officials. It’s patently false that the only way an Embassy can get a meeting is through a lobbyist.” Mr. Weertunga said last year, “There are 800-plus lobbying companies in Washington, so you can just imagine the work that they have. You can’t go and just talk to Congressmen or Senators unless you go through a lobbying firm, unfortunately.” “It is this time that I realised, particularly in the US, this whole business of lobbying is the order of the day,” he said, having just returned from a trip to Washington. “Knowing the staff in Embassies and High Commissions, I feel the way things happen, even if you have 40, 50, 100 staff…unless you have top class communication experts doing it all the time…” “They just don’t give their ear to you unless you go with someone you know,” he said. “It all depends on what is the lobbying company which can really pitch you.” But judging by what happened during the past few years, Sri Lanka is still searching for the right one. |