President orders Bribery Commission to probe claims in Pandora Papers

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ordered the Bribery Commission to investigate the allegations in the Pandora Papers.

Media Minister Dullas Alahapperuma said that the President instructed the Bribery Commission today to submit a report in a month.

The Media Minister said that the matter was also discussed at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Meanwhile, Cabinet co-spokesman Dr. Ramesh Pathirana said that the timeline when the alleged financial transactions took place will also be looked into.

In the Pandora Papers, confidential documents, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, revealed that as the country was ravaged by a bloody, decades-long civil war, Nirupama Rajapaksa and her husband Thirukumar Nadesan set up anonymous offshore trusts and shell companies to acquire artwork and luxury apartments and to store cash, securities and other assets in secret.

Pandora Papers revealed that the couple was able to amass and hide their fortune in secrecy jurisdictions with the assistance of financial services providers, lawyers and other whitecollar professionals who asked few questions about the source of their wealth ? even after Nadesan became a target of a well-publicised corruption investigation by Sri Lankan authorities. (Colombo Gazette)