Columns

By Sandun Jayawardana  

A government already beset by a scandal surrounding the purchase of low-grade coal for the Lakvijaya power plant faced a fresh controversy when Parliament met for the first time since the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, as it found itself on the back foot over the disappearance of USD 2.5 million from the Treasury.  

Opposition MPs were waiting to pounce on the subject of the missing millions and did so almost immediately after this week’s sessions commenced on Tuesday (5). Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa raised the issue under Standing Orders, firing off a series of questions at the government about the incident. In answer, Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Anil Jayantha Fernando briefed the House on how the matter had unfolded, according to investigations conducted thus far, as he defended the government’s handling of the incident.

Deputy Minister Fernando told the House that following the discovery that USD 2.5 million meant as a payment under a bilateral loan agreement with Australia had been uncovered, the Director General of the Treasury’s Department of External Resources (ERD) had lodged a complaint with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) regarding the incident on March 23. The opposition leader pointed out that Parliament had sat from April 7 to 10 before taking a break for the New Year, and questioned the deputy minister as to why the government did not reveal the issue to the House during that week, if it had sufficient information that the funds were missing. Opposition parties have been pointing out that matters of public finance are the responsibility of Parliament and have accused the government of attempting to cover up the incident, alleging that authorities were only forced to come clean after the matter was leaked.

Chief Opposition Whip and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Gayantha Karunathilaka told Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne that the opposition had requested a full day debate on the matter when party leaders had met him earlier to discuss the agenda for the first sitting week in May. The government however, rejected the request, he noted. In accordance with Standing Orders, the opposition was still demanding an emergency debate on the subject, he insisted.

The government was agreeable to the opposition’s request for an emergency debate, but instead of a full day’s adjournment debate, the debate that ultimately took place lasted just two hours. The development angered MPs from the opposition benches, as they accused the government of rejecting a longer debate for fear of being further exposed and embarrassed.

The government is attempting to stop discussing the issue of the missing Treasury funds while banking on the public losing interest in it with the passage of time, SJB National List MP Nizam Kariapper claimed. What happened is a “damning indictment” on officers in the Finance Ministry, the MP stressed. Mr. Kariapper added that according to investigations, the foundation for the cyber-theft of USD 2.5 million in Treasury funds was laid through compromised emails that led officials responsible to make a “silly mistake” where they failed to tell apart the correct domain name (gov.au) from a fake one (av.com). He questioned how tragic it was that officials within the Finance Ministry, who handle millions of dollars in funds, were unable to distinguish between a real domain name and a fake one. “This is not a hacking. This is mainly a matter of ignorance,” the MP asserted.

Given that he is also the Minister of Finance, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has a responsibility to come before Parliament, express regret over the incident and apologise to the people, Mr. Kariapper further remarked.

The government has taken steps to fully explain the steps it took after finding out that a payment of USD 2.5 million due to Export Finance Australia had been diverted to a third party via fraudulent means, Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando told the House. The CID’s probe into the incident is still ongoing, he added. Nevertheless, there has been a lot of misinformation within society regarding this incident, the deputy minister claimed.

Investigations into the incident are still ongoing and the government has a responsibility to reveal details after all the facts have been established. Reporting partial information or incorrect information will be disadvantageous to the investigations and could also mislead the public, said Deputy Minister Fernando. Referring to the death of one of the ERD’s Assistant Directors who had been interdicted over the incident, he claimed one could already see the effects of such misinformation cause confusion surrounding his death (a four-member panel of Judicial Medical Officers ruled the death to be a suicide). There were claims that it was the officer who subsequently died that lodged the complaint with the CID regarding this incident. This was not so. The complaint was lodged by the Director General of the ERD, he stressed.

In answer to questions on why the government did not brief Parliament earlier about the missing funds, he claimed the government could not divulge details without getting the correct facts of the case because it is a highly technical matter. “It is because people make baseless claims that we have a situation where society is being deceived,” he alleged.

“We commenced investigations into the incident within two days of learning about it. But you will need to go back and examine what happened when you held power. Whether it is in payments made to substandard fertiliser shipments, or the importation of dairy cows, the fact remains that millions of dollars have been lost and investigations into such incidents had not been held in years. Even those investigations are happening now. If anyone had committed a crime, do not hold any doubts. These probes will happen under our government,” the deputy minister told the opposition.

When it comes to such a highly sensitive issue involving state finances, the opposition or any other party should act responsibly. When expressing an opinion, one should base them solely on information that is true and not on speculation or various conclusions, said Dr. Fernando.

It is a matter of immense regret that the opposition has fallen to a position where they will even try to sell a corpse if it would help them achieve power, alleged Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara. “At no point did the government try to hide the fact that USD 2.5 million went missing from the Treasury. We have no such intention. The investigation is geared towards finding out whether it was the result of negligence, or if it was deliberate and if so, who was responsible. We will find who was responsible for this and bring them before courts to face justice.”

He said the opposition brought the matter of the missing funds up only on April 18, but the government had been investigating it since March 22. It was only after the probe was well underway that the opposition made a hue and cry about it, claiming the government was trying to conceal the incident. The reason for their agitation is that there are quite a number of cases against them that are pending in court, the Justice Minister further claimed.

While the topic of the missing Treasury funds overshadowed the main business of the House for much of this week, there were happier scenes on Friday (8) as the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, To Lam, who was on an official visit to Sri Lanka, delivered a special address to Parliament in the presence of MPs from both sides of the aisle (See political column for details).

Parliament will reconvene at 9.30am on May 19.