- 4 ex-Fisheries Corp officials bailed
The former Finance Ministry Secretary Charitha Ratwatte has been granted bail after being produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court yesterday (4).
He was taken into custody earlier in the day, at around 8.25 a.m., by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.
Ratwatte, who also served as a Senior Advisor to a former Prime Minister, was arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into the procurement of five temporary storage houses in 2015. It is alleged that the temporary storage houses were procured through the State Trading (General) Corporation at a cost of approximately Rs. 90 million, outside the prescribed procedures.
Meanwhile, Ceylon Fisheries Corporation former Chairperson Lalith Daulagala and three other officials have been arrested by the CIABOC. The suspects have been arrested in connection with the alleged incident of purchasing a vacuum packaging machine with a high capacity, capable of vacuum packaging 2,000 kilograms of fish per hour, for the Corporation in 2020, outside the procurement process and when there was no need for such a vacuum packaging machine. Accordingly, they have been arrested on charges of corruption for causing a loss of Rs. 5,856,116 to the Government through this purchase.
Daulagala, a Managing Director, Chandana Krishantha, a Supply Manager, Vijith Pushpakumara, and an Operations Manager, Anura Chandrasena Bandara, were arrested in connection with the incident by the CIABOC last afternoon. The CIABOC also said that Pushpakumara was arrested on charges of demanding a bribe and accepting a bribe of Rs. 100,000, credited to his personal account, in exchange for releasing a portion of the Rs. 928,058.20 that should have been paid to the supplier company for the said purchases.
The arrested suspects were later produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate's Court, which ordered the suspects to be released on bail. Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama, ordered the suspects to be released on two surety bonds of Rs. 1.5 million each, and also ordered that the suspects’ passports be surrendered to the Court.