FCID QUIZZES SHIRANTHI ON ‘SIRILIYA SAVIYA’
Former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa was yesterday quizzed for more than two hours by the Police Financial Crimes Investigation Division over alleged improper financial transactions of the Tangalle based Siriliya Saviya NGO headed by her. Police Spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said she was asked to come to a venue outside the FCID office in Kollupitiya as a security measure. He said a large mob that gathered outside the FCID premises yesterday morning protested against summoning her for questioning. Although the Spokesman decline to specify where she was being questioned, the Daily Mirror reliably learns that Mrs. Rajapaksa’s statement was recorded at the official residence of the Speaker.
Mrs. Rajapaksa arrived at the location accompanied by her attorneys.
ASP Gunasekara said the preliminary inquiries revealed that a bank account created for the transactions of the NGO had been made on the submission of false information of certain individuals.
Siriliya Saviya registered with the National Secretariat for Non Governmental Organisations under the No. 111201 and Carlton Bungalow, Tangalle as its address, had opened an account with the People’s Bank Suduwella Branch.
Police claimed the details submitted by the signatories to open the account such as their National Identity Card numbers were wrong. The account had also received large sums of money in the form of donations and there were discrepancies in issuing cheques.
Meanwhile the former First Lady responding to the Siriliya Saviya allegations stated that political opponents
Police claimed the details submitted by the signatories to open the account such as their National Identity Card numbers were wrong.The account had also received large sums of money in the form of donations and there were discrepancies in issuing cheques
of the Rajapaksa government had alleged that the three individuals including Mrs. Rajapaksa authorized to sign cheques on behalf of the NGO had provided ‘false’ NIC numbers to the People’s Bank.
The office of the former President in a statement said “When the bank account was first opened by the organization’s officials a copy of Mrs. Rajapaksa’s passport was given to the bank and the other two signatories Mrs. KH A N Jeewani Kumari and Mrs. SK K Dissanayake, provided copies of their NICs to the bank.
The names and the addresses of all three signatories in the bank’s system are correct but an error has obviously been made in entering the NIC numbers into the computer system. Cheques issued by Siriliya Saviya were not signed by non-existent persons. All three authorized signatories are real people who still serve the organisation”.
The statement further said that Siriliya Saviya was financed by local and foreign donations and no state funds were utilized in running this organisation. “The Carlton Suwa Udana Programme is a part of Siriliya Saviya and was started with the aim of building a children’s hospital with residential facilities for mothers who look after their sick children. A fund was raised for this purpose and owing to the freezing of the Siriliya Saviya bank account, Mrs. Rajapaksa has come to know that three patients who had been receiving financial assistance from the organisation had died”.