Investigators from the bribery commission have arrested a former chairman of Chilaw Plantations Company over a 2014 purchase of 5,000 textile sets that the commission says was made at a minister’s request, without any procurement process.
The arrest was made on Wednesday by investigating officers of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, Hiru News reported at 4.16 p.m.
Chilaw Plantations Company falls under the Ministry of Coconut Development and Janatha Estate Development.
The allegation
The commission says that during 2014, the company did business with an institution solely owned by a person who was then serving as a member of its own board of directors, without following the proper procurement process.
By approving the purchase of 5,000 textile sets at the minister’s request without any inquiry, the suspect is alleged to have caused Chilaw Plantations a loss of Rs 3,275,000 — committing the offence of corruption, the commission said.
The suspect is to be produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court.
What the filing withholds
The commission’s account, as carried, leaves the two central identities blank.
The former chairman is not named. Neither is the minister at whose request the purchase is said to have been approved, nor the board member whose company received the business, nor that company. The filing does not say which ministerial portfolio held Chilaw Plantations in 2014 or who held it.
It also does not explain what the 5,000 textile sets were for — whether they were workers’ uniforms, estate issue or something else — or how the Rs 3,275,000 loss was calculated, whether as the full value of the purchase or as an overpayment against a market price.
Context
The case is one of a continuing run of CIABOC arrests of former state-enterprise heads over decade-old procurement decisions. The Daily Mirror reported the arrest of a former Water Board chairman on 10 November, a separate case with no stated connection to this one.
This desk has recently reported an excise deputy commissioner arrested over bribery and the Supreme Court granting leave to proceed in the Shantha Premaratne bribery matter.
Not reported
The filing does not say when in 2014 the purchase took place, when the complaint was made, or why the investigation has taken until now to reach an arrest. It gives no case number and does not say what charge will be put in court or under which section.
Nothing states whether the former board member or the minister is also under investigation, whether anyone else has been arrested, or whether the company has recovered any of the money. There is no response from the suspect, the company or the ministry, and no official is quoted by name.
A note on terminology. The Sinhala filing uses the word dūṣaṇa, which carries more than one sense. In this context — a bribery commission investigation into a procurement decision — it means corruption, and the commission’s own framing of a financial loss to the company confirms that reading. The figure is given in the Sinhala as thirty-two lakhs and seventy-five thousand rupees, which matches the numeral Rs 3,275,000 printed alongside it.
A note on sourcing. This article rests on a single newsroom’s filing. Searches of the Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, the Island, the Daily FT, the Daily News, news.lk and EconomyNext found no independent account of this arrest at the time of writing.
