The Chairman of Parliament’s Committee on Public Finance (CoPF), Dr. Harsha de Silva, has disclosed that a report he sought from the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance on the diversion of US$2.5 million from the Treasury was sent to his private residence marked “for personal perusal only” — and that he refused to accept it.
Dr. de Silva said the report had been requested by the CoPF, not in his personal capacity, and that routing it privately bypassed the committee’s constitutional authority to scrutinise public finances. With agreement from committee members, he instructed that the document be re-submitted to Parliament through the proper channels for collective review by the CoPF.
“I am a representative of the people and currently serve as Chairman of the Public Finance Committee,” he said. “The report was requested for the committee to examine and discuss, not for my personal review.”
He confirmed the Finance Ministry had been given four weeks to produce the report. The committee will only examine its contents once it is formally laid before Parliament.
The episode escalates a parliamentary oversight standoff that began when the CoPF first summoned Treasury Secretary K.M. Mahinda Siriwardana in late April to explain how a Treasury debt repayment to Australia was diverted by fraudulent email instructions. Dr. de Silva has consistently rejected the official “hacking” framing, has questioned whether the breach amounts to a technical default on Sri Lanka’s sovereign obligations, and has criticised the Finance Ministry for what he called a lack of basic internal controls.
Sources: Ada Derana and Newswire.
