The Serenity Group Ltd. in Uganda has categorically denied all allegations levelled against them in the Sri Lankan social media. In a public statement, the company said it was brought to their attention that an article is circulating rampantly on social media, alleging Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has invested US$ 10,000 million (US$ 10 billion) in their group of companies in Uganda. The company said they categorically and vehemently reject these claims and allegations to be inaccurate, baseless and untrue.
The Serenity Group in a media release stated: “It is apparent that these were written by misguided individuals who have no knowledge of our inception and the growth we achieved through debt financing from reputed private banks in Uganda and Sri Lanka.”
Not only have they taken most information such as company names, photographs and locations from our official website and social media accounts without our consent and reposted with distorted meaning. They neither contacted any of us for comments or feedback up-to-date.” The Serenity Group Ltd in Uganda says it initially chose not to engage and respond to such baseless, cheap political propaganda, but later decided to issue the notice to the public for clarity and full disclosure in protection of their goodwill and the reputation of the group.
Director- Serenity Group Ruwan Jayaratne said they understand that several posts, articles and news stories are circulating on various media platforms in regard to Serenity Group, Uganda and its founders.
False and baseless
It is prudent to note that all these articles are false and baseless and written with malicious intentions. He said, “We are open to support any legitimate investigation or inquiry. We have not received any investment or financial support from politicians or the Government.
It is only our business acumen and the right network of friends and business contacts that have helped us in our growth.” While we have always chosen to remain apolitical as a business, we do feel the plight of the general public in these trying times and we respect people’s right to express their views. We are sharing our story to provide clarity to anyone who is still alleging us to be proxies for a political family, he said.
Jayaratne said he was joined by Devaka Ekanayake who is a graduate of University of Peradeniya and an engineer and they complemented each other as a team as they were both ambitious. “Together, we spearheaded the Africa Project Portfolio for the company in the subsequent years. It was certainly not a walk in the park to secure and manage Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) and supply contracts in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. We parted ways with the company upon successfully rooting their presence in East Africa, employing many Sri Lankans and building a multimillion-dollar project portfolio.”
He said “Devaka and I then started focusing on Serenity Group to venture into supply and construction contracts in rural electrification projects through Nile Heavy Engineering Ltd. Businesses were good so we decided to enter the restaurant business. We set up Café Ceylon and a bakery business called Bakehouse.
During an official visit to Uganda, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Café Ceylon in 2016 along with a few other politicians. Photographs from this event are now being circulated to misdirect the public into believing that these politicians had invested in Café Ceylon. We only took pride in hosting a former leader of our nation. Café Ceylon and Bakehouse closed some time ago as we divested ourselves from the restaurant business during the pandemic.
Jayaratne said our flagship project and the most challenging up to date was setting up East Africa Concrete Products Ltd (EACPL). Our main aim was to supply spun concrete poles and other concrete products for rural electrification. We noticed a gap in power distribution networks where wooden poles were utilised which are not environmentally friendly and had a low life span along with reliability issues.
Equity through equity
We lobbied the idea of spun concrete poles to bridge this gap, sourced the necessary approvals, raised finance, both debt and equity through equity investors and a reputed private bank in Sri Lanka to complete the first concrete pole factory in Uganda in the period 2014-2015.
As a start-up, it took a colossal effort to get this done. It was my close friends who are finance professionals in London and an old boy from my Alma Mater who is currently a leading CEO in Sri Lanka that really came through with equity and linked us to more investors. I personally mortgaged a family property as collateral to secure the debt financing.
He said, “Today, we are proud to say that EACPL is the leading supplier of concrete poles for rural electrification projects in Uganda. We are in the process of expanding our product line to various other construction products that would open up the low-cost housing construction market for the company and also contribute to the welfare of many underprivileged communities.”
In a nutshell, Serenity Group and its subsidiaries had an organic growth since its inception and provided employment for many Sri Lankans and Ugandans. In the process we have supported Sri Lanka through a steady flow of foreign remittances into the country. We have supported and still continue to support many Sri Lankan companies to either establish, secure or manage business projects in Uganda successfully.
He said it’s been a bumpy road and we are still work in progress. We have many challenges due to market conditions that we are addressing along the way. We are not afraid to state that we built our business with our own sweat, commitment and great sacrifice. Is it right to tarnish our name without having any proof for the allegations thrown at us? “I request our kind citizens to share this story the same way that you shared the distorted version. Our families are affected. Our good name is tainted. Our business is targeted. We need your support to overcome this situation.”
Director and Co-founder of Serenity Group Devaka Ekanayake said some fake websites and social media reports were basically saying that the Serenity Group and its subsidiary companies belong to the Rajapaksa family.
We categorically deny these media speculations. In order to deny this claim, we have all the company’s internal documents, directors’ details and funding that we have raised through loans.
However, our volumes of businesses are quite small compared to the amounts mentioned in the social media reports. We started our businesses in Uganda a long time ago. We started our businesses in Uganda in 2013 and the bigger investments came in 2014 and 2015 through banks. Actually, we didn’t need any funds in 2021 as speculated by certain social media.
Ekanayake said, “We are also publishing a legal notice through our lawyers and it will be published in newspapers on Monday (April 25). Some people are asking if we can deny these allegations but how did we end up in Uganda? How did we find funding for our businesses? But they don’t understand how the people work hard and do businesses for themselves rather than shouting on roads.
Still the news about us is circulating in some of the social media websites but if someone quotes it at a press briefing or any mainstream newspaper or even a YouTube channel, we are geared to take action against them.
“I am the founding director and shareholder of the Serenity Group. It was founded by me and another friend of mine. We started a restaurant business in Uganda and named it ‘Café Ceylon’ as it was serving Sri Lankan foods as well. In 2016 when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to Uganda, we invited him to visit our restaurant. Those pictures captured were circulated in the social media claiming that it was owned by Rajapaksas. Those fake news stories were circulated in 2021. We have already denied that allegation.
Therefore, we wanted to tell our true story to the people and how we started our businesses in Uganda and inspire people who are going to various other countries to start their business and bring foreign remittances to Sri Lanka. Actually, we are the legitimate owners of the Serenity Group and we are not proxies. The company’s values are quite small and still our company functions in Uganda. However, we closed our restaurant business at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but our engineering businesses are still going on,” he said.