Nihal Sri Ameresekere

F.C.A. (Sri Lanka), F.C.M.A. (United Kingdom), C.M.A. (Australia), C.F.E. (United States) is a Chartered Accountant and a Management Consultant, Certified Fraud Examiner, Member, International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management, Member, International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities, an Associate Member, American Bar Association, Member, Global Anti-Corruption Task Force and a former Advisor, Ministry of Finance and Chairman, Public Enterprise Reforms Commission in Sri Lanka. He has also functioned as Senior Consultant on World Bank and USAID funded public sector economic reform projects of the Government of Sri Lanka.

Nihal Sri Ameresekere after a brilliant scholastic collegiate record at a leading public School, S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, Sri Lanka, opted to pursue a professional career, instead of the academia. He apprenticed with Ernst & Young (then Turquand Young) Chartered Accountants, with training also in India. He received Awards from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, and also became a Member, Institute of Chartered Management Accountants, UK; subsequently, a Member, Institute of Certified Management Accountants, Australia, and a Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, US.

He ventured on his own professional practice in 1974, developing a clientele in several spheres of business and management consultancy, servicing private and public sectors, local and foreign, under the corporate name, Consultants 21 Ltd. In 1980 he was appointed to a Special Board by President J.R. Jayawardene, to manage the all-island Sri Lanka Transport Boards, serving in an honorary capacity, receiving commendations from international visiting missions to Sri Lanka. He has served on the Boards of several corporations. He was Council Member, University of Sri Jayawardenapura, Sri Lanka, and Institute of Chartered Accountants, Sri Lanka. He received the Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award 1983-84 for Business Management.

His advent into the public interest arena was in 1990, when he successfully prosecuted the first derivative action in law in Sri Lanka. It was instituted on grounds of fraud on the Government of Sri Lanka, in the construction of the Colombo Hilton Hotel, by Mitsui & Company Ltd., Taisei Corporation, and Architects, Kanko Kikaku Sekkeisha Yozo Shibata & Associates, of Japan. The landmark Judgment of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka is reported in the 1992 Commonwealth (Commercial) Law Reports. The Supreme Court adversely adverted that – ' the interim injunctions had been granted to prevent the devious syphoning out of monies from the Company and the Country, and that the Government having made itself responsible for the payment of such monies under State Guarantees, could not be indifferent '. A Special Presidential Commission, which started investigations, and criminal investigations which commenced thereafter, were both thwarted due to socio-political and diplomatic influences and pressures.

From 1990 he functioned as Senior Advisor and Consultant to the Ministry of Finance & Planning, Ministry of Policy Planning & Implementation and Ministry of Transport, during the tenures of Presidents R. Premadasa, and D.B. Wijetunga, vis-à-vis, privatisation, and projects of the World Bank and USAID, on re-structuring and infrastructure development, mooting public-private partnerships. In 1994 President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga appointed him as Advisor, Ministry of Finance & Planning. He was appointed as Chairman, Public Enterprises Reform Commission in 2004, which led to the exposure of some scandalous privatisations.

He successfully prosecuted, making submissions in person in the Supreme Court, two major privatisations, - the bunkering monopoly of the Government of Sri Lanka, Lanka Marine Services Ltd., to John Keells Holdings Ltd., and the insurance monopoly of the Government of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd., to the Distilleries Co. of Sri Lanka Ltd., and Aitken Spence & Co. Ltd., - all leading corporate giants in Sri Lanka. The Supreme Court delivered Judgments in 2008 and 2009, annulling both privatisations, as unlawful, illegal and fraudulent, and restoring both to the ownership of the State.

He addressed the Supreme Court in 2003 in successfully challenging the amendments to be enacted in Parliament to Statutes pertaining to debt recovery and parate execution by banks, resulting in the Supreme Court striking down the amendments and making adverse observations on the Statutes, - as 'harsh, oppressive and unconscionable'; and as 'denying access to justice' guaranteed under the Constitution, and that the 'law should not strengthen, the strong, and weaken, the weak'. He was a Member of the Company Law Advisory Commission responsible for the formulation and enactment of the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007, keeping abreast with contemporary practices in the developed world.

He spearheaded a public crusade against an Amnesty in 2003, causing the Reference of the same by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to the Supreme Court, with him making submissions in person, resulting in the Supreme Court, pronouncing the impugned Statute – ' to be antithetic to the rule of law' and 'violative of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights ', and further that it had - ' defrauded public revenue causing extensive loss to the State'. This led to the downfall of the then Government, and the new Government in 2004 repealed the impugned Statute. Again making submissions in person, he successfully challenged the Appropriation Bill 2008, with the Supreme Court making castigations on the irresponsible and reckless fiscal management by the Treasury vis-à-vis the doctrine of public trust, transparency and accountability, and directing the Parliament of Sri Lanka to ensure the full disclosure of borrowings, debt service and expenditure.

He was a renowned Lecturer in Management, operating his own Institute conducting courses for professional examinations, including Lecturing at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Sri Lanka. He has published countless articles in the public interest on scandalous privatisations and other transactions of the Government, including on fraud and corruption. He has been a public speaker on a range of topics of professional and public interest, and has hosted his own television talk show on national and public issues.

He is the quintessential corporate and state sector expertised reputed specialist and strategist. His repertoire of achievements, as a Consultant in private and public sector management, restructuring, privatisation, project promotion, public private partnerships for infrastructure development, financial engineering, taxation, governance, economic crime investigation, forensic accounting, commercial litigation support and public interest litigation, are well acknowledged. He has extensively travelled internationally on his professional consulting services, and in participating in conferences on combating fraud, corruption and economic crime. He is a Member of the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management (ICGFM), based in Virginia, US, and of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA), based in Beijing, China. In January 2011 he was selected to be a Member of an Experts Group to formulate the Work Plan of IAACA, which functions in close association with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which is responsible for the facilitation of the implementation by State Parties of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.

His family – Wife, Lilamani is an enthusiast in Western & Ikebana floral arrangements; Son, Dhananjana is an Architect, a Member, American Institute of Architects, graduate of Yale University, US in Architecture & Economics, with a Masters in Architecture with Awards from University of Pennsylvania, US; Daughter, Dheeshana is a graduate of American University, Washington DC, US, in Business Administration, with Associate Degrees in Hotel & Restaurant Operations with excellence from Kapi'olani College, Hawaii, and Honours from American Hotel & Motel Association, and a graduate of University of Hawaii, US, in Travel Industry Management; Son, Sharvajana, is a graduate of University of Michigan, US in Industrial and Operations Engineering with distinction, and with a Masters in Engineering Management from University of Southern California, US.