Piltered billions to be brought back

by Ranil Wijayapala

The Special Presidential Task Force for the recovery of illegally acquired State assets will start operations soon to bring back the looted State assets amounting to billions of rupees deposited outside the country during the previous regime with the assistance of friendly nations, international agencies and organisations, authoritative sources told the Sunday Observer.

President Maitripala Sirisena appointed a 13-member Presidential Task Force on Thursday for the recovery of illegally acquired State assets. “The objective of this Task Force is to identify the looted assets and the wealth acquired using stolen state assets elsewhere in the world and bring them back to the country,” the sources added.

The Task Force will get the support of the World Bank’s Stolen Assets Recovery Unit (StAR), an initiative of the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that supports international efforts to end safe havens for corrupt funds on the invitation extended to it by the Government.

The Government sought the assistance of StAR assistance in support of the investigations when Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera visited the US in February this year and a team from the StAR unit arrived in Sri Lanka in March and had discussions with various government Ministers and officials.

The Task Force will also enter into Mutual Legal Assistance agreements with the friendly nations to seek their assistance in tracking down the stashed away assets from the country.

The Government also announced earlier that it would seek the assistance of the Reserve Bank of India to get their technical assistance to recover the illegally acquired state assets.

The Government will also get the support of the United States and the Commonwealth nations to have legal and technical support to accomplish the task. According to a recent report appearing in some local and foreign media, the Government has estimated that around Rs.700 billion ($5.31 billion) had been taken out of the country in 2013 alone.

The Government is in possession of adequate information on stolen state assets but no specific cases have been referred to the Task Force as yet, the sources said. “The Task Force will get selected cases to investigate on a priority basis,” the sources added.

The 13-member special Presidential Task Force comprises Bimba Tillakaratne, H.M.L.T. Mudalige, H. Amarathunga, C.A.H.M. Wijerathna, A.K.D.D. Arandara, L.S. Pathinayake, Dilrukshi Dias Wickramasinghe, Kalyani Dahanayake, Jagath P Wijeweera, D.G.N. Jayawardena, C.A. Premashantha, President’s Counsel Yasantha Kodagoda and senior lawyer J.C. Weliamuna will start investigations in a bid to recover those assets. The President is yet to appoint a Chairman for the Task Force and a member will soon be nominated as the Chairman of the Task Force.