NDB rebuilds four board committees as Sujeewa Mudalige resigns from the board

National Development Bank PLC has reconstituted four of its board committees — including the audit and risk committees — on the same day that Independent Non-Executive Director Sujeewa Mudalige resigned from the board.

In a filing to the Colombo Stock Exchange reported by the Daily Mirror, the bank said Mudalige stepped down for personal reasons, effective 12 November, and that the committee changes took effect from the same date. NDB said it would disclose his shareholding as at the date of resignation in due course.

The new line-up

Nandika Buddhipala chairs the Board Audit Committee, with Sriyan Cooray and Bernard Sinniah as members. Hasitha Premaratne chairs the Integrated Risk Management Committee, alongside Sanjaya Mohottala and Kushan D’Alwis.

D’Alwis chairs the Nominations and Governance Committee, whose other members are Buddhipala and Cooray. Kasturi Chellaraja chairs the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee, with Sinniah, Cooray and Premaratne.

All four committees are chaired by independent non-executive directors, and all three members of the Nominations and Governance Committee are independent, according to the filing.

The context the filing does not give

NDB’s board audit committee is not being rebuilt in a vacuum. Four days earlier, the Central Bank barred the Ernst & Young partners who audited NDB from any further bank audits and separately required the bank to reconstitute that committee. Today’s filing makes no reference to that directive, and does not say whether the new committee line-up is the response to it.

The bank has been working through the consequences of an internal fraud that Deloitte’s final forensic report fixed at Rs. 13.64 billion in September. NDB has since replaced EY with KPMG as external auditor.

Not reported

The filing gives no reason beyond “personal reasons” for Mudalige’s departure, does not say how long he served, and does not say whether a replacement director will be appointed. It does not state which committees he sat on before leaving, so the extent to which the reshuffle simply fills his seats — rather than representing a wider restructuring — cannot be determined from it. EconomyNext had not filed on the announcement at the time of writing.