While chaos reigned in the streets of Colombo with massive traffic jams as the government prepared for the multi billion rupee SAARC show last week, the SLFP was busy raking in millions of rupees from selected businessmen at Temple Trees even as the Chief Justice signalled, no one including the President was above the law.

That the people are undergoing tremendous economic hardships there is no gainsaying with many a small business house forced to put up shutters due to the prevailing crisis but when it comes to doling out millions for presidential requirements, there was no shortage of funders as evident at Temple Trees on Wednesday, July 30.

And all the President had to give in return was a glass of red wine and a biriyani feed from Holiday Inn to the businessmen who were seated in sheds put up at Temple Trees.

With two provincial council elections due on August 23 and plans to dissolve the other five councils soon after, the government wanted to ensure it had sufficient funds for the campaign and ‘other stuff’ and coming up with a bright idea to raise it was new SLFP Treasurer, US Green Card holder and Transport Minister Dulles Alahapperuma who together with President’s Coordinating Secretary Sajin Vass Gunewardena mooted a plan to President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The plan ostensibly styled in the US presidential fund-raising dinner plate format was to get identified ministers, mostly from UNP defectors to bring five businessmen with a million rupees each, making a total of five million rupees courtesy every minister invited for the biriyani feed.

The Dulles-Sajin duo also told the President they should identify 20 ministers initially to be invited for the event, which would ensure they get Rs. 100 million in one night at the cost of a biriyani and a glass of red wine. Even that cost was to be borne by the state.

That was not all.

The duo were to tell the President that by asking each minister to bring five businessmen for the dinner, they would also be able to identify who the financiers were of every minister, so that tabs can be kept on whose behalf various projects were promoted by those ministers as and when they arise.

The President of course agreed with the game plan and set the dinner date for July 30 and Alahapperuma was given the task of identifying the 20 ministers to be invited.

This Alahapperuma set about doing straightaway and briefed the ministers invited what was expected of them. He said to the ministers identified that they should each give the names of five businessmen, who should be told to come with a minimum of Rs. 1 million for the dinner.

Now the million smackers were not meant to lift the lot of the disabled soldiers, provide shelter to the homeless or feed the hungry in the villages but fund the SLFP’s future endeavours, the ministers were told.

And once the unsuspecting ministers gave the names of their financiers, they were each issued five invitation cards for the Presidential dinner with a request to fill in the respective names of their financiers.

With the stage thus set, security officers at Temple Trees were given the names of the ministers invited for the dinner and under each name were listed the five businessmen who were invited by the respective ministers.

But to ensure the money bags will not be opened by the security personnel, instructions were also given only to check the businessmen and not the parcels they carried, which incidentally were left on a side table till the frisking was over.

And as the businessmen entered Temple Trees carrying their million bucks, they were ushered to a ‘takaran shed,’ where tables were laid for them to serve the biriyani from the buffet table but not before they parted with the cash.

Not long after the businessmen were seated, word was sent that the President was ready to receive them and each minister was asked to accompany the five financiers they had invited to Rajapakse’s office room where he was seated with Alahapperuma, Vass Gunawardena, and Additional Secretary, Gamini Senaratne. At the door playing the role of usher was non cabinet Minister of Power Mahindananda Aluthgamage.

Sajin of course was not without a role to play and had the list of names to check and whether each minister had brought the five financiers that were promised.

There was of course an interesting bunch of ministers exposing their financiers and among them were, G.L. Peiris, Mahinda Wijesekera, Nimal Siripala De Silva, Maithripala Sirisena, Bandula Gunawardena, Neomal Perera, Faizer Mustapha, Keheliya Rambukwella, John Seneviratne, Felix Perera and Susil Premjayanth. Conspicuous by their absence were ministers Sarath Amunugama, Milinda Moragoda, Karu Jayasuriya, Rajitha Senaratne and A.H.M. Fowzie who obviously thought discretion was the better part of valour.

Interestingly, as each minister accompanied his five trophies to the President for display with their million bucks each, others stood in line in the takaran shed waiting for their turn and it was only after handing over the money that each group of businessmen were taken to the buffet table for their biriyani and chicken feed.

Of course Rajapakse is the master when it comes to public relations and he spent at least 15 minutes with each set of financiers inquiring after their businesses and any problems they had.

For example, Minister Bandula Gunawardena had brought with him the Pettah businessmen including Jaafer Sathar and Mohamed Ali, while Mahinda Wijesekera had invited an arms dealer Raj Mylvaganam. Among the other business persons present were Udaya Nanayakkara, his son-in-law Heshana de Silva, John Dissanayake of ABC Insurance Company, Surendra Vasantha Perera of the Sunhill Group of Companies, Sanjeewa Wickremanayake, Jehan Amaratunge, Nimal Cooke, Joel Selvanayagam, Mano Selvanathan, Sajad Mowzoon, Anushi Jayewardena, Akbar Ali and casino king, Ravi Wijeratne. In total there were nearly 100 financiers, which would have brought in the targeted Rs. 100 million.

In fact, at the time of handing over the invitation, the ministers told their financiers they must come with the one million rupees and they all did barring one.

And that was a Chinese businessman who is a partner in Minister Wijesekera’s wife’s company and he told the Minister he had forgotten to do so, at which point panic set in for the Telecommunications Minister, who told the businessman he will advance the money and to return it to him the following day.

With the businessman agreeing, Wijesekera called his wife and asked her to send a cheque for one million rupees immediately to Temple Trees and gave it to the businessman who in turn handed it over to the President as his own.

The plan as far as the government was concerned went like clockwork and after each million rupee packet or bag was handed over to the President, he left it on an adjacent table and within moments the money was whisked away by Alahapperuma or Vass Gunawardena.

It was also not without significance that the receipts given to the businessmen titled "Sri Lanka Freedom Party — cash receipt" was not signed by anyone making it a worthless piece of paper (see copy below where the name of the recipient was deleted for obvious reasons).

Needless to say receipts were given but the general talk among the businessmen present was that the donation would be tax free and need not be disclosed in the books as a gift to the President since there was no signature of the recipient.

Such irritants aside, the President was at his charming best and why not too with 100 million smackers for the asking and when Minister Peiris after introducing his financiers whispered to Rajapakse he had to go for the dinner hosted by Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, he was told, "Go go, you go for that dinner." For Peiris, it was a case of settling for chapathi instead of biriyani that night.

However, before he departed, the President had a word of caution for one of the financiers invited by Peiris and that was a key player in the Vanaspathi trade, Sajad Mowzoon. The businessman incidentally was the man who was credited with gifting JVP discard Wimal Weerawansa an expensive cellular phone.

On being introduced by Peiris as a Vanaspathi exporter, the President was to tell Sajad. "I have enough problems with India. Stop sending your stuff to India."

Responded Sajad — "No sir, we don’t export to India anymore. Now we export to Europe."

Replied Rajapakse — "Good, good, you get better prices there." With that Peiris excused himself and rushed to the Taj Samudra for Menon’s dinner, where he was to be given a talking to by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga but that’s another story.

The fund-raising was at least one positive for the President in a trying week where he had to deal with the resignation of Treasury Secretary P. B. Jayasundera, whose services Rajapakse considers indispensable to keep the Finance Ministry up and running.

The problem of course was the damning findings of the Supreme Court on Jayasundera’s role in the Lanka Marine Services privatisation deal, which made it not only untenable but immoral for him to continue as Treasury Secretary, but the President had other ideas and told him to stay put.

The issue was not made any easier for the President after Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva on Saturday, July 26 opening a court complex in Moneragala stressed the importance of weeding out corruption and warned that the courts will take action if their judgements are not acted upon.

And to indicate he means business, the Chief Justice was to also say the judiciary will not be cowed down by the Finance Ministry or its officers, a salvo not lost on Jayasundera, who is waiting with trepidation for the judgement in the Insurance Corporation privatisation case.

Thus, no sooner the words of the Chief Justice reached Jayasundera, he decided to call it quits and armed with his letter of resignation met the President, who however advised him not to budge.

The President took the position that they should play for time by appointing a committee to study all the privatisation deals and submit a report and based on that decision for Jayasundera to stay put.

In arriving at this decision, though, all the pros and cons were weighed including on the one hand the negative impact Jayasundera’s resignation will have on the government, the signal it will send to other public officials, impact on investment and on the other whether even tougher measures will follow against Jayasundera in the insurance case if he continued in office.

It is after considering all these factors the President asked Jayasundera to stay on with an assurance he will take care of the official in the event of any further action against him.

The offer of a pardon to Minister Thondaman who was convicted for contempt of court last week was one such move of reassurance to P.B. Jayasundera.

With that said the President signalled his intentions at the Economic Affairs Sub Committee meeting the following day, Tuesday, with Jayasundera also in attendance. Among the others present were Ministers Karu Jayasuriya, Milinda Moragoda and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa.

At this meeting the President said privatisation was a dirty word in his vocabulary and he was in favour of public-private partnerships but that officials cannot be faulted for carrying out policy directives given by a government.

The President went on to say he intends appointing a cabinet sub committee and a committee of officials to study the privatisation agreements and come up with recommendations for action based on the policy framework of the government in office at the relevant time.

Taking Mihin Lanka as an example, the President went on to say, it was the policy of his government to set up the airline based on which directions were given to officials for implementation of various decisions and it would not be correct to in the future punish the officials concerned for carrying out such directives.

That this battle is far from over however was signalled by the Chief Justice, just 24 hours earlier, when he took up a fundamental rights petition over the failure of the President to appoint the Constitutional Council in terms of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.

Granting leave to proceed on the application filed by Attorney Ravi Jayewardene and University Lecturer Sumanasiri Liyanage, the Chief Justice was to comment that every citizen should respect the law and no one was above it, comments which may well be ground breaking considering the immunity from suit granted to the president under the constitution.

It is noteworthy that the President was cited as a respondent together with the Speaker, Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Secretary to the President and the Attorney General and it is when State Counsel Nerin Pulle submitted notice cannot be issued on the first respondent since he is the President that the Chief Justice made his significant comments.

While the comments of the Chief Justice will be a cause for worry for the President, he had bigger headaches to deal with in relation to the SAARC arrangements given the infighting within the Foreign Ministry leading to logistical chaos.

With reports reaching Rajapakse on the battle for supremacy between Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and his Secretary Palitha Kohona causing confusion when it came to fine-tuning the SAARC arrangements, a livid President directed several other ministers including, G.L. Peiris, Anura Yapa and Milinda Moragoda to hold separate press conferences to explain matters.

In what has became a comedy in the Foreign Ministry, Bogollagama is bypassing the Secretary when arrangements are discussed with the Secretary not having attended any meeting for some time now while hundreds of other representatives from the state and private sector have been called for meetings followed by snacks. It is also due to this on going battle, the President appointed Sajin Vass Gunawardena as Foreign Ministry Coordinator, and he has kept Kohona posted of all developments.

And the battle between Bogollagama and Kohona spilt over even to the official banquets hosted by them with each trying to outdo the other at state expense in the name of SAARC which of course was of no real consequence to the people at large.

Due to this ongoing battle and the lack of coordination, it was the public that was called upon to pay not only financially for the extravagance but also hours on the road due to the traffic chaos.

First there was a disastrous rehearsal on Sunday, July 27 with most roads in Colombo closed and due to a lack of coordination, a decision was taken to have another rehearsal on Wednesday, July 30, causing more chaos on the streets with people and motorists stranded for over three hours.

The disaster on Sunday, July 27 was observed by Bogollagama first hand when he flew in by chopper with his wife from Nawalapitya to the BMICH grounds to observe the arrangements. The rehearsal, the Foreign Ministry officials themselves noted lacked any such details as vehicle convoys, and dummies for heads of state and foreign ministers leading to a chaotic situation where the security personnel did not know what was in fact going on. Hence the second rehearsal on Wednesday, adding to the road chaos.

Then came the lavish banquets organised by Bogollagama and Kohona, with the Minister deciding to host 400 guests at Rs. 10,000 per head while Kohona came close with a budget of Rs. 5,000 per head whereas the President’s banquet for 200 guests was to cost only Rs. 4000 per head.

Mind you, Bogollagama’s do was to cost another Rs. 2,500,000 for the floral decor and lighting in addition to another Rs. 1 million for cocktails.

And to bypass Kohona, Minister Bogollagama has enlisted the services of Former High Commissioner to UK, Kshenuka Seneviratne, with Mt. Lavinia Hotel Caterers, called in on Sunday, July 27 for a "taste-tasting" of every dish by the Minister, his wife Deepthi and Seneviratne, much to the amusement of the Foreign Secretary.

That dinner was finally held on Friday, July 31 with at least one man in the form and shape of European Union Parliamentarian Niranjan Deva Aditya once described as a ‘banquet beggar’ by former Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar proudly announcing his invitation to all and sundry.

For Deva Aditya at least it was a just reward for rubbishing the statement of the EU parliamentary delegation of which he was a member on Sri Lanka’s human rights record and he went so far as to boast to the likes of Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe that Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapakse had promised him to prosecute 500 security forces personnel for rights abuses.

Deva Aditya was also hopeful of receiving an invitation for the banquet hosted by President Rajapakse on Saturday (yesterday) having sung for his supper by criticising the EU statement at the government’s insistence.

Such antics apart, there was also a hiccup over the government’s failure to invite former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera for any of the SAARC events with not so subtle queries made by India why it was so.

In fact, the Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shanker Menon invited Kumaratunga for a banquet hosted on Wednesday at the Taj Samudra Hotel with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also meeting with the former President yesterday to discuss the current political developments in the country.

And hearing of the invitations extended by India to Kumaratunga invitations were rushed Thursday night to her official residence by the government for the SAARC opening and closing ceremonies and the President’s banquet.

The former President having already fixed other appointments by this time declined the late invitations except the one for the SAARC opening ceremony.