Rajapaksas official income doesn’t match investment in CSN – Ashu Marasinghe ….. totals Rs. 20.4 million since 1970

By Zacki Jabbar

The government yesterday demanded to know how the Rajapaksas had acquired Rs. 340 million investment in Carlton Sports Network as their total official incomes since 1970 had been only Rs. 20,839,630.

National List UNP MP, Ashu Marasinghe, addressing a press conference in Colombo said that Mahinda Rajapaksa since the national legislature in 1970 had earned a total salary of Rs.13, 550, 255 while the official incomes of his sons Yositha and Namal as naval officer and parliamentarian was Rs.3,184,720 and Rs. 4,104,385 respectively.

The Financial Crimes Investigation Department’s (FCID) inquiries into the activities of the Carlton Sports Network(CSN) revolved around money laundering charges, he claimed, adding that it was a legally constituted body mandated to investigate financial crimes against the State.

Media Minister Gayantha Karunathaillake said the FCID had recommended that Yositha Rajapaksa and five others be arrested following the perusal of 12,500 official emails.

Dismissing Opposition calls for the FCID to be disbanded, the Minister emphasised that it had to be strengthened in keeping with the governments pledge to eliminate corruption, a key mandate on which they were elected to power. "The FCID can only make recommendations. It is the courts that decide on what the punishment should be."

Deputy Media Minister Karunaratne Paranavitana said that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government was not on a witch hunt but was only fulfilling its election pledges. "The people are questioning us what had happened to the corruption charges that we levelled against the Rajapaksa’s in the run up to the last presidential election."