Who is accountable for the enormous losses due to the Bond Scam; politicos continue to accuse each other

COLOMBO (News 1st):- UNP Parliamentarian Dr. Harsha De Silva provided an extensive explanation about the Forensic Audit Report on the Bond Scam at a media briefing held at the Opposition Leader's Office today (February 2). The MP speaking to the media said;

"This Forensic Audit Report was done by two top audit firms in the world. There are two basic audits in this. One is the transaction that occurred in the Bond Market. The other one was the transaction that took place in the Stock Market. All the phone call recordings, text messages, Viber messages, WhatsApp messages, all the money that was looted by hundreds, three hundred, five hundreds and seven hundred all of these information are in the report. There are worse phone recordings than Ranjan Ramanayake's ones. The files that were deleted have been re-opened. Can you remember we called one person as "Fat Man" in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry? "Fat Man'' has 15, 955 active documents. There are 354, 672 deleted documents."

Extensively speaking on the matter he also said;

"In addition to all of these findings, they have held discussions with people. There are interviews. But there is something missing in this. They were not able to talk to Arjuna Mahendran. But they have all of his digital assets. They are in possession of his Phone, IPad, Desktop, and Laptop. So they were able to find these days under Digital Forensics. The second matter is about the Former Governor of the Central Bank - Ajith Nivard Cabraal. He is there but they have not found any of his electronic devices."

Explaining the loss that was incurred due to the Bond Scam the MP said;

"As of the 27th of February 2015, the minimum loss was at Rs. 1.106 billion. The maximum loss was at Rs.  1.114 billion. They have looked in to all suspicious issuances of bonds till the 29th of March. According to that;

1. Loss of Rs 38.9 million has been incurred from the first one
2. Rs 91.8 million from the second
3. Rs 675 million from the third one
4. 611 million from the fourth one
5. Rs 1.495 billion from the fifth one.

He went onto say; "What was criticized was that there was no theft from 2015 to 2016. But the minimum loss incurred by the government from the 27th of February 2015 to 29th of March 2016 is at Rs. 6.633 billion The maximum loss is at Rs. 9.681 billion. These numbers were released to the general public for the first time through this Forensic Audit Report. All the indirect connections through various investigations we saw on media are not mentioned in this. That is a different story. The CID should be investigating as to what happened to that money." Meanwhile, MP Mujibur Rahman too commented about the bond scam at a press briefing held in the Sirikotha UNP headquarters. He says;

"Who will be held responsible for the losses of Rs 10.47 billion suffered through the issue of bonds, and the losses caused to the EPF that amounted to Rs. 10 billion. How are they planning on getting this money back? Who will be held responsible for this? Some people are saying now that this is not a theft it is a loss. So they are trying to say that what happened in 2015 was a theft and what happened before that was not a theft. They are saying that they suffered losses after engaging in businesses. We know that people suffer losses while doing business, they might suffer losses in the first year, and the second year, but they cannot be recording losses continuously if they are suffering losses continuously then the person who's doing it does not know how to carry out business. Or they are trying to depict these are transactions that caused losses while they had amassed undue profits through these transactions. We would like to point out that the losses suffered between 2005 and 2015 was a theft. They are trying to label it as a loss and cover up the theft."

Q: Your government was in power why didn't you investigate into the time frame from 2005 to 2015?

"The report is out today as a result of the decisions that were taken in the past. If the Presidential election was delayed the decisions would have been taken during our time. It is irrelevant as to when the scams took place. The report is out, it has to be sent to the AGs department and enact the law."

MP Namal Rajapaksa participating in the Badulla District Bala Mandala meeting held last afternoon responded to questions posed by journalists regarding bond scam investigations. Q:- Now the Bond Scam issue has been passed on to your side The MP responded; "We will definitely conduct a clear investigation about the Bond scam. We will arrest whoever is involved in this scam no matter where they are hiding in the world and we will let the police  enforce the law independently for the perpetrators."