Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Kabir Hashim has called for an independent forensic audit of the Treasury and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka following a Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) report into a cyber fraud involving public funds.
Hashim made these remarks while opening the parliamentary debate on the CoPF report, which examined a cybercrime-linked fraud that Parliament has established involved approximately $2.5 million in public money.
Criminal Liability Falls Outside CoPF Scope
Citing the Committee's findings, Hashim said Parliament had confirmed that the fraud had taken place, but stressed that establishing criminal liability was a matter for criminal investigators rather than the CoPF.
He said determining whether public officials involved had acted out of negligence, incompetence or deliberate complicity would require a separate criminal inquiry, noting that this fell beyond the Committee's mandate.
Questions Raised Over Suspensions and Accountability
Hashim questioned the decision to suspend four middle-level officers, pointing out that the CoPF report had placed responsibility for several governance failures at a far higher level, specifically with the Secretary to the Treasury and the Governor of the Central Bank.
He argued that the disciplinary action taken so far did not reflect where the report itself had located accountability.
He also raised concerns over whether sufficient secondments had been arranged from the Central Bank to support the transfer of debt management responsibilities to the newly established Public Debt Management Office, suggesting that gaps in this transition may have contributed to the vulnerabilities exposed by the fraud.
Warning Over Wider Implications for Sovereign Debt Confidence
Hashim warned that the fraud carried consequences far beyond the funds directly involved, cautioning that weaknesses in sovereign debt operations risked undermining confidence in Sri Lanka's public financial management.
He said that as a country still working to rebuild international trust following its 2022 sovereign default, the findings carried repercussions extending well beyond the $2.5 million lost, and he renewed his call for an immediate forensic audit to be conducted by independent foreign experts.
Committee Recommends Stronger Controls
The CoPF report itself concluded that governance, procedural and operational failures across several institutions had heightened the risk of the fraud occurring, while reiterating that determining criminal liability lay outside Parliament's oversight function.
The Committee recommended strengthening internal controls, improving cybersecurity systems and tightening verification procedures for sovereign debt repayments to prevent similar incidents in future.
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