Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake is under pressure to resign amid allegations that a company at the centre of a probe into alleged irregularities at a government bond sale paid for a luxury apartment taken on lease by him.
Karunanayake this week appeared before a presidential commission of inquiry in connection with the bond sale scandal in 2015.
Perpetual Treasuries Ltd, a subsidiary of a company owned by the son-in-law of Sri Lanka's then-central bank chief Arjuna Mahendran, bought more than half of the controversial bond issue on February 27, 2015, prompting charges of a conflict of interest.
Mahendran and his son-in-law, Arjun Aloysius, have denied any wrongdoing.
Karunanayake, who was the Minister of Finance earlier is accused of taking on lease a luxury apartment in Colombo paid for by Aloysius of Perpetual Treasuries.
A leading civil society think tank, Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), said, "The allegations are of sufficient gravity to require the immediate resignation of Ravi Karunanayake MP, the Minister of Foreign Affairs."
The CPA says Karunanayake's explanation that he knew nothing of the deal and it was his wife and daughter who had procured the apartment was unacceptable.
"CPA finds the Minster's testimony not only entirely implausible but also deeply damaging," it said.
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