Three, including top political figure took Rs 1b bribe

By Uditha Kumarasinghe

Three persons including a high profile political figure have been involved in taking a Rs. one billion bribe from 400 pharmaceutical companies which had each given Rs.2.5 million to misplace the bill pertaining to the national drug policy during the tenure of former UPFA Government in 2011, Health and Indigenous Medicine Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne told the Sunday Observer.

Pharmaceutical companies would never divulge the names of the politician and others whom they have bribed.

When President Maithripala Sirisena was the Health Minister of the former Government, some pharmaceutical companies informed him that they contributed Rs.2.5 million each to three persons, the Minister said.

Those who collected money from pharmaceutical companies informed them that the money is for three people.

It has been revealed that some of those in the legal sector had also intervened to misplace the draft bill.

However, the business people would never expose the names of the bribe takers as it would be a hindrance to continue their business ventures.

Later it had been found that Rs 2.5 million each had been collected from 400 drug companies to delay the bill becoming law, he said.

Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe told the Sunday Observer that there has to be some acceptable evidence to prove that a bribe was given and taken. No one has so far denied the President's assertion that certain people had received a bribe in this connection.

"However when this kind of white-collar crimes are committed, those who engage in such acts don't provide any room to find out about such illegal transactions.

Therefore it would be difficult to commence any investigation to trace the culprits without any clear evidence to prove it," the Minister said. President Maithripala Sirisena who addressed Parliament at the commencement of second reading stage debate on National Medicines Regulatory Authority Bill said that a powerful politician of the previous regime had taken a Rs one billion bribe to misplace the draft bill of the national drug policy.

The President disclosed 400 pharmaceutical companies each paid Rs 2.5 million to make up the one billion rupee bribe.

President Sirisena told the Parliament that a draft bill he had prepared when he was the Health Minister had gone missing in 2011 with the blessings of higher-ups of the then regime.

Though then Head of the Legal Draftsman Department Theresa Perera promised to complete the draft bill within a week, she retired and the draft bill and even the hard disk of the computer which contained the bill had gone missing.

President said that an investigation should have been conducted to find the person responsible, but the entire nation knew under whose authority the Legal Draftsman Department functioned then. The President described disappearance of the draft bill as the biggest tragedy in the country's health sector.