{"id":59808,"date":"2018-06-30T23:09:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T03:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=59808"},"modified":"2018-06-30T23:09:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T03:09:41","slug":"sri-lankan-police-re-launch-investigation-into-alleged-funding-of-ex-president-mahinda-rajapaksas-election-campaign-by-china-harbour-engineering-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=59808","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankan Police Re-Launch Investigation Into Alleged Funding of Ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Election Campaign By China Harbour Engineering Company."},"content":{"rendered":"

Police has been asked to revive an investigation into alleged Chinese funding of Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s re-election bid following a foreign newspaper report that $7.6 million was paid through the Standard Chartered Bank.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deputy Minister of Social Empowerment Ranjan Ramanayake lodged a complaint with the Financial Crimes Investigation Division on Friday after the New York Times (NYT) last week said that the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) paid the money days before the January 2015 election.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The amount of money allegedly pumped into the Rajapaksa campaign was considerably less than the 24 million dollars thought to have been paid following preliminary investigations by the police two years ago. The NYT put the figure at 7.6 million dollars.<\/p>\n

Official sources said it was the Central Bank\u2019s Financial Intelligence Unit which initially raised the alarm and flagged their concerns about CHEC payments in 2015.<\/p>\n

With the huge work load of investigations, the Chinese funding investigation appeared to have been overshadowed by other high profile cases till it was highlighted by the New York Times.<\/p>\n

Government spokesman and Health minister Rajith Senaratne said the New York Times had helped revive the investigation. He said denials issued by Rajapaksa loyalists to the local media were insufficient and wanted them to respond directly to the foreign newspaper.<\/p>\n

President Rajapaksa\u2019s legislator son Namal on Friday promised a statement regarding the NYT report, but it was yet to issue by Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be issuing a statement shortly in response to the inaccuracies in the article,\u201d namal said. After a tweet which said: \u201cMany inaccuracies in this article. Acknowledging the Port is near 1 of the world\u2019s busiest shipping lanes shows why it\u2019s still a major focus for the West, fearing China\u2019s growing global influence. #SriLanka\u2019s assets shouldn\u2019t be used as geopolitical pawns in this power struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former central bank governor Nivard Cabraal too rejected the report saying much of what he had told the NYT reporter was not included in the story headlined: \u201cHow China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabraal also made no reference to the alleged payments from CHEC using a Standard Chartered bank account in Colombo.<\/p>\n

In its report, the NYT said it had seen documents from an internal governmental investigation the details of payments and verified them through intelligence sources as well as questioning people to whom some of the cheques had been made.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith 10 days to go before polls opened, around $3.7 million was distributed in checks: $678,000 to print campaign T-shirts and other promotional material and $297,000 to buy supporters gifts, including women\u2019s saris.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother $38,000 was paid to a popular Buddhist monk who was supporting Mr. Rajapaksa\u2019s electoral bid, while two checks totalling $1.7 million were delivered by volunteers to Temple Trees, his official residence,\u201d the NYT said in the report published on its print edition on June 26.<\/p>\n

Most of the payments were from a subaccount controlled by China Harbour, named \u201cHPDP Phase 2,\u201d shorthand for Hambantota Port Development Project. The bank account number had been given as 02 013359190\/19 in previous Sri Lankan media reports.<\/p>\n

In the final weeks of the 2015 election, China\u2019s ambassador broke with diplomatic norms and lobbied voters, even caddies at Colombo\u2019s premier golf course, to support Mr. Rajapaksa over the opposition, the NYT said.<\/p>\n

The NYT investigation suggests that even through the new administration of President Maithripala Sirisena wanted to reduce the country\u2019s reliance on China, it was locked into a debt trap.<\/p>\n

The NYT said the Hambantota port deal was one of the most vivid examples of China\u2019s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world \u2014 and of its willingness to play hardball to collect.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate comment from the company.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rajapaksa and his aides did not respond to multiple requests for comment, made over several months, for the article, the NYT said adding that officials for China Harbour also would not comment.<\/p>\n

However, in July 2015 when the allegations were first made, CHEC had issued a statement deny they funded Rajapaksa\u2019s re-election bid.<\/p>\n

“The CHEC calls on all the relevant Sri Lankan officials and parties not to misunderstand their responsible and cooperative partner, and not to send a wrong signal to the investors from China and all other countries,\u201d the CHEC said in a statement at the time. <\/p>\n

Courtesy:ECONOMY NEXT<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police has been asked to revive an investigation into alleged Chinese funding of Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s re-election bid following a foreign newspaper report that $7.6 million was paid through the Standard Chartered Bank. Deputy Minister of Social Empowerment Ranjan Ramanayake lodged a complaint with the Financial Crimes Investigation Division on Friday after the New York Times …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Sri Lankan Police Re-Launch Investigation Into Alleged Funding of Ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Election Campaign By China Harbour Engineering Company.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59809,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59808\/revisions\/59809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}