JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake made explosive revelations in Parliament last week, presenting cheque numbers and dates of transactions proving that China Harbour Engineering Company had paid tens of millions to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election campaign in December and January 2015.
In a 30 minute speech in Parliament last Thursday (19), during the debate on the New York Times article about payments from the Chinese company to the Rajapaksa campaign, Dissanayake revealed a Rs 39 million cheque issued by CHEC’s Standard Chartered Bank A/C No 013359190 on December 12, 2014, with less than a month to the presidential poll.
The cheque no 981321 was issued from a sub-account controlled by CHEC, named HPDP (Hambantota Port Development Project) Phase 2.
On December 31, 2014, with eight days left to election day, another cheque (No 981320) for Rs 58 million was issued from the HPDP account, Dissanayake revealed. According to Dissanayake, who had information from investigators into the trajectory of the funds, that cheque was handed over to the Nation Lanka Capital General Manager M.B. Priyantha, who went to Temple Trees with Anura Chandrasiri, then Managing Director of Nation Lanka Capital and handed the cheque over to Hema Madiwa, at the presidential election campaign office of former President Rajapaksa.
The funds were used to print 245,000 t-shirts and 135,000 caps for the Nil Balakaya, a youth movement led by the former President’s son Namal Rajapaksa. “What guarantee do we have that the Port City was not built for these commissions,” Dissanayake charged in his explosive statement.
Referring to the Chinese operated Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT) donation to the Pushpa Rajapaksa Foundation, Dissanayake revealed that CICT had transferred USD 150,000 from its US dollar account maintained at HSBC, to its Rupee account at the same bank on May 12, 2012. On the same day, the amount of Rs 19.4 million (almost exactly 150,000 dollars at that day’s exchange rate), was transferred to the Foundation run by former Minister Basil Rajapaksa’s wife.