Handunnetti throws challenge to Kiriella:

 “Come up with better option”

By Uditha Kumarasinghe

The Parliamentary Watchdog, committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) Chairman Sunil Handunnetti yesterday challenged the Leader of the House, Minister Lakshman Kiriella to come up with a better option than that of the Auditor General (AG) on the controversial Treasury Bond scandal and argue the issue on logical grounds.

Minister Kiriella told the media “The Auditor General’s (AG)report on the CB Treasury Bond issue was flawed as he had not sought an opinion from financial experts and economists before compiling it.” No UNP MP in COPE has however expressed any opposition to the report, COPE Chairman Handunnetti told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Minister Kiriella is not a member of COPE. The AG is an independent person and he has presented his independent views. Anybody has the right to agree or disagree with his views. But nobody has the right to criticise him as it is his independent point of view. If the AG’s opinion is not acceptable, then there should be an alternative opinion in this regard. Criticising the AG to cover up their errors is not justifiable at all, he said.

Minister Kiriella may have a valid reason to make such a statement perhaps he must have misled himself. There is a COPE investigation on the appointment of advisors to Minister Kiriella and dozens of employees too to the Road Development Authority (RDA).

When the AG’s Department and COPE conduct investigations on the shortcomings and lapses of some ministries, there is no need to attack the AG’s Department or COPE to avenge their anger. That is really what Minister Kiriella is doing right now. In these circumstances, we will have to conduct investigations only on institutions which don’t come under Ministers.

Hadunnetti said “It is up to the Ministers to rectify mistakes in their institutions while the AG should be allowed to express his independent view. Any attack on the AG can reasonably be construed as an attack on the financial control procedure of the country.”