Government MPs threaten to remove Harsha from COPF chair, Ajith P. Perera says

A majority of government MPs threatened to remove Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chairman Harsha de Silva from his post if video footage related to investigations into hackers operating within the committee released to the media, former Parliamentarian Ajith P. Perera says.

The former MP stated this while replying to a question raised by journalists on the "Hiru Salakuna" political programme held yesterday (15) regarding the non-release of the COPF discussion video footage to the media.

The former MP revealed during the programme that the release of video footage of the last two meetings of the parliamentary COPF, where the Treasury Secretary and the Central Bank Governor summoned to discuss financial frauds and the dollar crisis, halted due to severe pressure from government MPs.

Although the COPF discussions allowed to be known by the public with transparency so far, a majority group of government MPs exerted heavy pressure requesting to prevent the release of these video tapes, the former MP mentioned.

He stated that previously in the year 2023 as well, steps taken to abolish the chairmanship of Harsha de Silva at the time when recommendations presented exposing the coal scam.

Harsha de Silva directly challenged them at this instance as well, saying "if so, remove me from the chairmanship", and opposition MPs insisted that these video tapes released immediately as usual since citizens a right to know who is responsible for the financial management problems occurring in the country, he said.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank Governor who recently arrived at parliament stated that although the current foreign exchange amount of 6.8 billion US dollars, including Chinese currency, is somewhat sufficient, the government must further improve these funds to achieve targets in the coming years, he mentioned.

The Sri Lanka Police and Customs uncovered a large-scale racket where many companies in the country illegally transferred dollars out of the country under the guise of importing goods without bringing down any goods, he states.

Therein, it is reported that a company named 'Next Gen' (Next Gen Private Limited) alone transferred a sum of 12,890 million rupees to companies in 26 foreign countries on 953 occasions, sending 42.7 million dollars out of the country, he said.

Furthermore, money related to the 13.2 billion rupee (1,300 crore) financial fraud at the National Development Bank (NDB) also sent to foreign countries within a short period through this exact method, and another 43 million dollars went out of the country through it. Although the Central Bank Governor said that fraudsters deceived the Central Bank officials, the supervisory process of the Central Bank remains at a very weak level due to the inability to prevent such multi-billion rupee financial frauds from occurring for years, the former MP further alleges.