President extends PCOI by another three months
With an effort to boost local dairy production, the government had imported high-yielding milch cows from Australia in 2017 and most of them were traced with having the Bovine Viral Diarrhea
President Maithripala Sirisena has extended the term of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCOI) to investigate corruption of the current administration by another three months, the sources said.
The Commission was supposed to end its tenure in July 18 but the President had decided to extend its period for another three months considering the ongoing proceedings, Commission sources said.
President Maithripala Sirisena had appointed a Presidential Commission of inquiry to investigate into the acts of corruption and frauds that have been allegedly committed in State institutions during the period from January 15, 2015 to December 31, 2018.
It was also reported that by next week a team including the Chairman of the PCOI, retired Supreme Court Justice Upali Abeyratne and other Commissioners, officials from the Attorney General’s (AG) department including Deputy Solicitor General Ayesha Jinasena will visit the farms which had obtained imported high-yielding milch cows in 2017.
With an effort to boost local dairy production, the government had imported over 20,000 high-yielding milch cows from Australia in 2017 and most of them were traced with having the Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) virus infection, it was reported by the recently.
The reports of all investigations carried out by the police regarding the Easter Sunday carnage should be sent to Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith so that he could make his observations, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday.
The Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said this at the opening of a new building at the Kinniya Central College.
“The CID has completed the investigations on the Easter Sunday attacks and a report has been handed over to Speaker Karu Jaysuriya. He had referred it to me and to the Parliamentary Select Committee probing the bomb attacks. The investigation reports have cleared former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen but had asked the Attorney General to file action against some others. Therefore I proposed to the members of the select committee to meet Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith and hand him over a copy of the CID reports. Catholic church has a right to look at these investigation reports and make its observations,” the Prime Minister said.
“However some have said they reject the CID reports. They had said they are not satisfied with the investigations carried out on former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen. The reports have cleared Mr. Bathiudeen when it comes to 300 complaints filed against him by various persons. However CID has submitted investigation reports to the Attorney General and had wanted him to file legal action against some suspects. In such circumstances it is not advisable to reject the reports as the lawyers which will be retained by the suspects against whom legal action are to be taken to their advantage. Lawyers of these suspects will argue that it is not possible to file legal action. They would argue that CID reports have no credibility as some have rejected it,” the Prime Minister added.
Prime Minister recalled that all Muslim Ministers including Mr. Bathiudeen resigned from their posts in order to allow proper investigations on the Easter Sunday attacks could be carried out. “They informed me that they want to resign so that investigations could be carried out in a proper manner. The Ministers resigned so that no one could claim that they are trying to stop the investigations,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said in this regard.
Also the Prime Minister said it is time all ethnic groups in the country begin to call themselves Sri Lankans. “The Sinhalese will not lose anything by calling themselves Sri Lankans. Likewise neither a Tamil nor a Muslim would lose their respective identities by calling them and identifying themselves as Sri Lankans ,” he finally said.