I personally approve of Arjuna Mahendran
as the treasury secretary, as he has to manage the Country’s finances and with
his international banking connections is expected to renegotiate over US$ 5B of
foreign loans from 6 per cent to 1 per cent and thereby save the treasury
US$250M or in rupees Rs33B in interest alone, p,a!
I know the initial talk was for him to get
the Governorship of the Central Bank, but I understand an even more devious
operator with ties to the Sumal Perera owned Access Engineering as a non-exec
director is vying for that slot. Now why are there no people who are NOT
stained being considered as candidates? Don’t we have no more Mr cleans left in
Sri Lanka with so many qualified people!!!!
However it must be remembered that his
son in law plundered the EPF to the tune of Rs3B with the connivance of Namal
Rajapaksa who received a kick back of Rs500M and the proviso should be that he
should repay that to the EPF as part of the deal. I know it was done by the son
in law before he married the daughter of Arjuna Mahendran, and so Mr Mahendran
is NOT GUILTY of any wrongdoing in this regard, but he must realize that mud
sticks, and if this Govt. is going to survive and the UNP to be re-elected in
May 2015 General Election to govern for a minimum 6 year term as it should,
these are potentially vote losing issues that must be pre planned before any
shit hits the fan.
It would be even more embarrassing, when
Dr Harsha de Silva has undertaken to prosecute the wrongdoers and the son in law’s
transactions, including the Central Finance pump and dump of over a billion in profit
over a few days, will come under their scrutiny.
In either case a proper legitimate
reason must be put forward, to back these people as the Rajapaksa faction is hell
bent on picking on the slightest bit of favoritism to nail the new
administration, no matter how dirty, and corrupt they were in Govt. where one
can no longer sit in opposition and criticize, where one has to be in Govt. and
deliver upon the promises.
Don’t forget it is the people in the
Country that determine who our leaders are, and in the end we are accountable
ONLY to them, no matter what geniuses or rogues we appoint to high position, to
carry out the duties entrusted to them, by the people and that is what
democracy is all about, even if we have one grain of altruism left in us.
Let it not be a lesson in continuity of
the same, but a change for the good.
I just sounded the top brass of the treasury. Arjuna Mahendran needs to know how to deal with the Mandarins in the treasury who are prima donnas of their own accord, and need to be on his side.
ReplyDeleteAfter all the reality is that the Treasury figures were cooked for the November budget, and he needs the cooperation of the officials to get the new figures in drawing up the new budget. The budget deficit will rise from 4.2 per cent to 8 per cent, and its implications for the interest rate, exchange rate, and foreign risk can be catastrophic.
Only Mahendran can bring this to the attention of the world investors without alarming them, by first having a loan of US$2B standby negotiated in case of a loss of confidence.
The SL economy is healthy and due to the oil price drop can withstand this blip with the US$11B that will be remitted this year.
Anyway this needs management, explanation, and the additional Rs100B needed to fulfil the 100 day promise needs to be taken into account.
It will be a while before the US$5B plundered can be recovered with the help of offshore banks, but eventually that will also be done, and the loans to china re negotiated too, to halve the principal due due to fraud,proving that after international arbitration!
Arjuna Mahendran was appointed as the new Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
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