{"id":163279,"date":"2016-06-01T12:46:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T07:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=163279"},"modified":"2016-06-01T12:46:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T07:16:39","slug":"joint-opposition-wants-arjuna-mahendran-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/joint-opposition-wants-arjuna-mahendran-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint Opposition Wants Arjuna Mahendran Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Joint Opposition has called on President Maithripala Sirisena to not extend the term of controversial Governor of the Central Bank, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Arjuna+Mahendran&amp;x=10&amp;y=7\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Arjuna Mahendran<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_151303\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/central-banking-can-we-do-better\/arjuna-mahendran-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-151303\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-151303\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-151303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/arjuna-mahendran-150x150.png\" alt=\"Mahendran\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/arjuna-mahendran-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/arjuna-mahendran-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-151303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mahendran<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a letter addressed to Sirisena, the members of the Joint Opposition has cited the two bond scams as the primary reasons for their request, while also claiming that Mahendran was not fit to hold the position.<\/p>\n<p>In mid-May, former Chairman of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) and Communist Party (CP) Leader DEW Gunasekera requested Sirisena not to grant Mahendran a second term to head the Central Bank.<\/p>\n<p>It is learnt that the letter which was sent to Sirisena by the Joint Opposition included the signatures of Gunasekera, Tissa Vitarana and Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane among other MPs.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the Central Bank initially announced that it was going to issue treasury bonds to the tune of Rs. 40 billion in March 2016, the bank had instead issued bonds to the tune of Rs. 80 billion, allegedly the second biggest financial scam in a year at the Central Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Continuous requests by good governance activist, and former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Chandra Jayaratne from the Central Bank\u2019s Monetary Board for information pertaining to the Treasury Bond issuance, has however proved futile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":151303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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