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Corruption Commission awaits complaint to probe

06 Oct 2021

  • Opposition requests Govt. probe Pandora allegations
  • Shehan S. alleges mudslinging; blames ‘90s Presidents
  • NPP queries who the actual owner of Rosetti Ltd. is
  • Nadesan’s letter to Ranil in 2016 released
BY Pamodi Waravita The Commission to Investigate into Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) yesterday (5) told The Morning that they are unable to initiate an investigation into the allegations levelled against former Deputy Minister Nirupama Rajapaksa and her husband Thirukumar Nadesan in connection with the Pandora Papers, without a formal complaint being received. “We have not received a complaint in this regard yet. The Commission cannot begin an investigation without a complaint,” a senior official told The Morning on condition of anonymity yesterday. Former Water Supply and Drainage Deputy Minister Nirupama Rajapaksa – who is also the cousin of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa – and her husband Thirukumar Nadesan, have been named in the recent International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) Pandora Papers files leak. The documents allege that the couple were involved in shell companies (inactive companies used as vehicles for various financial manoeuvres or kept dormant for future use in some other capacity) located in tax havens, which obtained lucrative consulting contracts from foreign companies doing business with the Government of Sri Lanka. Bringing up the aforementioned revelations in Parliament yesterday, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Opposition Parliamentarian Thushara Indunil Amarasena requested the Government to conduct a probe into the matter. “This is not a small amount of money. This is $ 168 million. This is what one member in one family has made for herself. The Rajapaksa name is in global news, yet this family has no shame. Even if the Rajapaksa family used Rs. 1 million per month, they have enough funds for the next 250 years. If the Rajapaksa family spent Rs. 100,000 daily, the funds accumulated can be used for 900 years,” he charged. Responding to these claims, Samurdhi, Household Economy, Micro Finance, Self-Employment, Business Development, and Underutilised State Resources Development State Minister Shehan Semasinghe said that the Parliament should not be used to make baseless allegations. “People are slinging mud at the Rajapaksa family again, like they did in 2015. None of these claims can be proven. This website says that these funds started coming from the 1990s. Who was there in the Governments from 1990 to 2000? President Ranasinghe Premadasa (from January 1989 to May 1993) was one of the then rulers. Incumbent Premier Mahinda Rajapaksa did not rule the country as the President before 2000. You were in the Government for five years from 2015 but you could not prove one claim against the Rajapaksa family during that time,” claimed Semasinghe. He was referring to one of the documents revealed by the ICIJ investigation, which noted that one of the shell companies owned by the couple – Pacific Commodities Ltd. -- Guernsey Company (TUC) – had been paid commissions from contracts dating from 1991 to 1994. Accordingly, commissions had been obtained from providing consulting services to Air Lanka in 1991 and to a Kalu Ganga Water Supply Project for Greater Colombo in 1993. Meanwhile, National People’s Power (NPP) MP Vijitha Herath in Parliament yesterday demanded that the Government reveal the real owner of Rosetti Ltd. “Although previous investigations have named powerful people, this is the first time a politician is named. Rosetti Ltd. was initially started in 1991. Was this a joint ownership by Nirupama Rajapaksa and Nadesan? The Government is bound to clarify this to the public. This is not something the Government can brush off by stating that this is a personal account. It is vital that the Government reveal whether funds were transferred to the pair after 2006 as well, when the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was passed in Sri Lanka. These allegations are levelled at a politician. The Government needs to immediately clarify their stance and find the truth behind the matter,” said Herath. In 2016, when Basil Rajapaksa was accused of using public funds to build a villa in Malwana, Nadesan was also charged with embezzlement in connection with the incident. Although the pair has since denied any wrongdoing, the legal case into the matter is still ongoing. The ICIJ also revealed that when Nadesan was arrested on embezzlement charges related to this case, he wrote a personal letter to then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, proclaiming his innocence. He had said that he was unaware until he read news reports that Basil Rajapaksa had built a house on his property. He added that the land was then sold to avoid “harm to his name and reputation”. “I request your good self to appreciate that I have not done anything improper or illegal and to therefore do justice by me. My transactions are transparent and a matter of record,” Nadesan wrote, according to the ICIJ. The ICIJ further said that Asiaciti Trust, a Singapore-based offshore services provider, which managed some of Nadesan’s offshore accounts, had stated in confidential electronic mails that as of 2011, Nadesan’s overall wealth was $ 160 million. An analysis by the ICIJ has found that the Asiaciti Trust alone managed assets valued at about $ 18 million for Nadesan. At a press conference on 4 October, NPP Leader and MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake questioned as to why an investigation has not been initiated into the matter, especially considering that many world leaders have already come forward to address allegations made by the ICIJ about their own respective countries. In an initial statement released on 4 October, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) urged a domestic investigation to determine if any of the wealth mentioned in the Pandora Papers is a result of the abuse of Sri Lankan public resources. It added that this would require the law enforcement authorities to complete the ICIJ investigations into the implicated individuals without interference. The Pandora Papers is a leak of almost 12 million documents that reveal hidden wealth, tax avoidance, and in some cases, money laundering by some of the world’s most rich and the powerful. More than 600 journalists in 117 countries had trawled through the files from 14 sources for months, finding the stories that were being published this week. The data was obtained by the ICIJ in Washington DC, which has been working with more than 140 media organisations on its biggest-ever global investigation.


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