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| Friday, 26 March 2004 |
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Conflicts of interest by Rajiva Wijesingha A couple of weeks back, following various criticisms I had made of Wickrama Weerasooria, I was sent a copy of the Report he had written when asked to settle the dispute between the People's Bank and Yashodha Holdings. He claims there that he undertook the assignment following a request by Mr. Paskaralingam that he look into the matter and settle the dispute. Wickrama claims that he agreed, provided the Prime Minister were in agreement with this. He later claims that, 'in my own conscience, I had no conflict of interest or bias in undertaking this inquiry'. Leaving aside Wickrama himself, there are others involved in this business about whom it would clearly be difficult to say the same. The current Minister of Finance 'appeared as a lawyer for Yashoda Holdings (Pvt) Ltd., in Appeal Court Case No 12658/98 in July 1997'. The Chairman of the People's Bank is Mr. Lal Nanayakkara while the company's Auditors (ie Yashodha's) were Messrs Lal Nanayakkara and Co. But leaving aside these worthies, whether one can actually believe Wickrama's sanctimonious assertion here is another question, given the splendid inconsistencies of his report. One chapter he declares quite clearly deals 'with the part played by Her Excellency, the President in crippling and ultimately putting an end to the backing and other credit facilities that Yashoda Holdings (Pvt) Ltd., had with the People's Bank and with other banks after the People's Bank's suspended lending to it". Now, naughty though this is of the President, Wickrama is also categorical in his condemnation of the Chairman of the Board who 'was more accommodating to the customer than George Silva himself. He notes that 'In a devastating finding, the Central Bank report concluded that the Bank's Board appointed after the new PA Government in August 1994 must as a whole take full responsibility for having exposed the bank to a loss of Rs. 2.4 billion'. Naughtly Chairman for indulging the customer, naughty President for putting a stop to this. And of course naughty, naughty Board, which Wickrama underlines elsewhere had been 'appointed after the change of government in August 1994'. Doubtless this paragon of objectivity would deny that this is why he criticizes it so much, while also criticizing the President for her actions as noted above. Characteristically though, the previous Chairman comes in for praise, although it was under him that the questionable transactions with Yashodha had begun, as is suggested by the 'cautious comments' of his, that Wickrama quotes. But, despite him doing nothing about the matter for five years, Wickrama claims that had he 'continued as Chairman of the Bank, very soon, he would have discovered what was happening to this account and exercised greater control and caution. In fact, he may have even replaced George Silva or appointed some other senior staff officer to supervise him because of the largeness of the account.' Incidentally, despite Wickrama's strictures on George Sivla, including his appointment, there is no reference to which government did this. Anyone reading the report then will realize that Wickrama's assertion that he had no bias in this issue is quite preposterous. His use of language (in addition to an irritating habit of using an apostrophe for the possessive of it - viz it's) is also bizarre. Only a man who didn't understand English, or a hardboiled cynic, could have written, 'Thus, we are now talking of the Bank having to get paid for only 432 (out of 444) import bills the customer negotiated through the Bank amounting to a little over Rs. 8.6 billion.' Using the word 'only' implies this is a trivial factor - since Yashodha had settled 22 bills out of 444, for a sum amounting to Rs. 22.5 million, it was only a comparatively trifling sum of Rs. 8.6 billion that was outstanding. Did Ranil know this would happen when he approved of Wickrama undertaking this assignment? In the old days I would certainly have thought that Ranil was not the sort of person to dismiss Rs. 8.4 billion as a small amount, or to approve of this sort of twisted reporting where money was in question. But, given the importance to him in the days when he kept losing elections of securing funding for his party, I suspect that standards have changed. If there is a conflict of interest, the country has to come after the party. |
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