AFP/Colombo
Sri Lanka’s new government pledged yesterday to trace billions of dollars in stolen wealth stashed abroad by members of the previous regime and said experts from the IMF and World Bank had agreed to help.
Former president Mahinda Rajapakse and his powerful family are accused of siphoning large sums of money from the public coffers during his decade in power, which ended when he was voted out this month.
The new cabinet agreed at its first meeting Wednesday to track down the cash, and said forensic experts from India’s central bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would assist.
“We will go after the foreign assets of Sri Lankans,” health minister and cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne told reporters in Colombo.
“Billions of dollars have been stolen and taken out of the country. We are taking steps to bring them back.”
Sri Lanka’s anti-graft body has already slapped overseas travel bans on the former central bank governor Nivard Cabraal and Sajin Vass Gunawardena, a key Rajapakse aide, pending a corruption investigation.
Energy minister Champika Ranawaka said a preliminary study by a local university showed the cost of new road construction in Sri Lanka in 2013 had been inflated by 200bn rupees ($1.53bn).
Rajapakse was the minister in charge of highways in the former administration.
Ranawaka accused Rajapakse and his immediate family, who controlled nearly 70% of the national budget, of siphoning off 700bn rupees ($5.38$) from the national economy.
The new government of president Maithripala Sirisena took power on a pledge to investigate allegations of corruption under Rajapakse.
Rajapakse was the minister of finance, highways and ports, while all his immediate family members also held powerful positions in the administration.
The government also announced a 20% reduction in fuel prices and accused the former regime of imposing unfair taxes at a time when world oil prices had tumbled.
“The former regime used taxes from fuel and basic food items to finance their luxury lifestyles of racing cars and extravagance,” Ranawaka said.
The two ministers said the cabinet also appointed a high-powered “rapid response team” to look into corrupt land transactions, stock market price-fixing and the abuse of state funds for political purposes.
The government will also review mega projects awarded to Chinese companies, including the construction of a $1.4bn port city just next to the Colombo harbour.
Agreements with foreign lenders will also be reviewed amid allegations of huge corruption, the government said.
Cabraal and Gunawardena said they had yet to be told of the travel ban.
“There was a complaint from the bribery commission and we have imposed a temporary travel suspension on them,” Nihal Ranasinghe, the controller of immigration and emigration department, said.
Another official from the anti-graft commission confirmed the travel ban.
Rajapakse, widely accused of corruption and nepotism during his rule, lost his bid for a third term and the new government has started formal probes into all the financial deals under his administration.
Sri Lanka’s Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peremuna party last week complained to anti-corruption body that both Cabraal and Gunawardena had misused public funds.
It said Cabraal had misused the funds by investing in Greek junk bonds in April 2011 and lost millions of dollars in signing a wrong crude oil hedging contract in 2007. Cabraal has rejected all allegations.
JVP accused Gunawardena of accumulating wealth by misusing public funds. He has also denied the allegations.
“I have written a letter to the (bribery) commission seeking clarification and to say that I am available to be present at the commission any time,” Gunawardena said.
“Anyway, I’ve no intention of leaving the county. If I had wanted, I’d have gone by now.”
Mahinda Rajapakse
