Sri Lankan government rejects opposition MP's motion to publish names of bad debtors

The Sri Lankan government today rejected a private members' motion moved by an opposition parliamentarian to disclose the names of the bad debtors.
United National Party MP Ravi Karunanayaka Friday moving a private members' motion has called for the parliament to introduce legal provisions to publish names of defaulters who have borrowed over Rs.100 million from State Banks as a measure for recovering the losses. However, Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem has said that confidentiality rules governing the banking industry do not allow disclosing client information to the public. The MP informed the parliament yesterday that the two major state banks, bank of Ceylon and Peoples' Bank had written-off a combined total of Rs. 125 billion. The parliament said the motion "Publishing the names of defaulters of loans taken from State Banks" was moved by the House and negatived.