Anti-corruption advocates are demanding the Sri Lankan government take action after Pandora Papers exposed the hidden wealth of a former government official and a businessman tied to the ruling Rajapaksa family.
Activists from Transparency International Sri Lanka and others have made a united call for an investigation into the financial dealings of Nirupama Rajapaksa, a former deputy minister, and her husband, Thirukumar Nadesan.
Together, they have urged the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption and the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit to act after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported how the couple held at least $17 million worth of assets in secretive offshore trusts. Nirupama Rajapaksa and Nadesan deny any wrongdoing.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists investigation, based on a leak of 11.9 million, records also showed how Ramalingam Paskaralingam, a former adviser to three Sri Lankan leaders, created trusts and companies in the British Virgin Islands to hold millions of dollars, invest in a private college, and buy property in the U.K. Paskaralingam did not respond to ICIJ’s repeated comment requests.
Ramalingam Paskaralingam, also known as “Paski,” wielded influence as a bureaucrat and as an adviser to three of Sri Lanka’s leaders. From 1989 to 1994, Paskaralingam served as secretary to the country’s finance ministry under President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was assassinated in 1993, and then under the caretaker president, Dingiri Banda Wijetunga.
In 1997, a government commission found Paskaralingam and three senior politicians had abused their power by granting contracts to favored companies and pocketing foreign aid, local media reported. Paskaralingam, who had moved to the United Kingdom in 1994, denied wrongdoing. The Supreme Court overturned the commission’s findings on technical grounds, according to local media.
From 2002 to 2004, and again from 2015 to 2018, he served as an economic adviser to then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose center-right party, the United National Party, is now in the opposition.
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – Report
In 2012, Paskaralingam set up a trust in the British Virgin Islands whose purpose was “succession planning,” according to incorporation documents that recorded his occupation as “retired.” He listed himself and other members of his family as beneficiaries.
The trust owned a British Virgin Islands company and a Singapore company that held shares in Horizon College of Business and Technology, a private vocational school in East Colombo.
The following year, after ICIJ’s “Secrecy for Sale” investigation exposed the offshore business of a Singapore provider, Paskaralingam closed the trust, the records show. He later created a new one in the BVI for his son and a nephew fearing that “he is going to be left without proper succession [plans],” according to confidential emails.
In 2014, officers with Trident Trust, the provider overseeing the trust, expressed concern in confidential emails with Paskaralingam’s advisers about a $100,000 transfer that was initially requested to invest in the college and was later labeled as “personal expenses.”
In 2015, Paskaralingam instructed Trident Trust to transfer $2.6 million from the trust to him so that he could invest in a property in the U.K., where his family lived. The following year, Paskaralingam closed the trust. Shares of the BVI company that had indirectly invested in the school were transferred to him, according to confidential emails.
Paskaralingam did not respond to ICIJ’s repeated requests for comment.
Upul Daranagama, chairman of the Horizon College of Business and Technology (HCBT), told ICIJ that Paskaralingam financed the establishment of the school in 2008, when he didn’t hold a government position. “He himself invested his own wealth,” Daranagama said.
Through his Singapore company, St. John’s Investments, the former bureaucrat still owns 80% of HCBT but has never been involved in the school’s business and administration, Daranagama said.
He added that no money has been transferred from the school to Paskaralingam’s foreign companies. “We have not remitted any single penny from Colombo because his intention was not to really make money,” Daranagama said. (ICIJ)