Rambukwella’s arrest disgrace as alleged sins come home to roost
Magistrate orders CID probe into all drug imports and into victims’ fate
The litany of sins which ex-Health Minister Rambukwella stands accused of, came home to roost in a magistrate’s court last Saturday. But there was not even a single Government MP present when he was brought to court, with hands cuffed to disgrace, to hear his accuser, Deputy Solicitor General Lakmini Girihagama spell out the atrocious claims of corruption against him.
Only 5 months ago, he had been the toast of SLPP MPs and had strutted like the cock of the well in Parliament, after 112 of them had helped him defeat the no-confidence motion brought against him by SJB leader Sajith Premadasa. But on Saturday, there were none to express even a modicum of solidarity. In his hour of ignominy, they had all studiously stayed away, and cast him to the wolves, like something the cat had brought home.
They had been wise. For they would have stood rooted to their ghastly shame to hear the man, in whom they had reposed such confidence when the motion was brought last September, accused of being the mastermind behind a conspiracy to mislead the Cabinet, defraud the state of billions and give cheap inferior drugs to even seriously ill cancer patients.
What Lakmini Girihagama told Maligakanda Magistrate Lochani Abeywickrama, astounded court. The prosecuting attorney-at-law described:
How he had warned the Cabinet on August 18, 2022, by presenting a paper wherein he had falsely claimed there was a serious shortage of drugs in the
country which threatened the lives of patients when, in fact, neither existed.
How he had on the same day created a false fear in the Cabinet by warning that, since State Pharmaceutical officials had refused to comply with his instructions to formulate a mechanism to immediately use the Indian credit line’s balance money on the ground that no provision existed to call for ‘expressions of interest’ to buy medical drugs, the entire medical system
will crash within 3 weeks. How he had, despite the Health Secretary informing him on September 5th that there were sufficient drugs to last for 2 or 3 months, painted a nonexistent crisis on September 26, 2022 before the cabinet by claiming that 17 drugs had reached zero levels, with 182 drugs in short supply, and persuaded the worried cabinet to grant him sanction to buy from unregistered suppliers.
How Rambukwella had conspired to supply substandard immunoglobulin—an ineffective placebo—to be used in government hospitals to fight serious infections.
These shocking disclosures, along with a host of others, similarly shocking, sufficed to make the magistrate Lochani Abeywickrama order the CID to probe not only the present case of immunoglobulin but also the whole gamut of medical drugs imported under the Indian credit line since 2022. She also called for a CID probe on the fate that befell those who were administered inferior drugs.
Though Rambukwella pleaded innocent to all charges, he was, however, remanded until February 15. But controversy followed him to the Welikada Prison compound, even as mass protests had shadowed him before his arrest.
The charge of preferential VIP treatment was made when he was admitted to the prison hospital instead of the usual procedure of being first taken to remand jail; and, thereafter, on doctors’ recommendation, transferred to Welikada prison hospital.
On January 31st, the man who filed the first complaint against Rambukwella on October 3, 2023, civil activist Kamantha Thushara and others staged a protest outside CID headquarters, dashing coconuts and demanding Rambukwella’s arrest. Instead, they were arrested and released by the courts the following day.
On New Year’s Day, a wreath of flowers was laid outside Rambukwella’s residence by civil activists to express the nation’s outrage over his non-arrest. Following a complaint made by Rambukwella’s daughter, they were arrested but later released.
There will be no flowers for former Minister Rambukwella at his hospital bedside at Welikada Prison nor any tears this Sunday morn over his remand plight. The flowers on the wreath laid outside his gate have long since drooped, and, like his own reputation, lie crumbled to dust.
Neither will there be flowers on the graves of all who died before their time due to inferior medical drugs nor any bloom of hope in their grieving families’ hearts that they will rest in peace. They all await for justice to be finally done to bloom and flower.