Mahesh Amalean could be hanged for mismanagement of state assets, according to a recent announcement by the NPP social media spokesperson Mr Chathuranga Abeysinghe.
In one of his self-recorded video messages, the visibly angry Abeysinghe threatens that under an NPP regime, all those who failed to generate profits in the state assets will be hanged, you read it right, “hanged”.
Billionaire philanthropist Mahesh Amalean is a well-known businessperson in Sri Lanka who co-founded one of the largest apparel export businesses, namely MAS Holdings in Sri Lanka.
He was the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC) from 2008 to 2019. SLINTEC comes under the purview of the Ministry of Digital Technology and Entrepreneur Development. According to the 2021 performance review report by the National Science and Technology Commission, SLINTEC has continuously incurred financial losses in hundreds of millions of rupees for the review period 2017-2019. The huge annual losses are borne by the taxpayer.
The report concludes that SLINTEC is not financially viable, and its sustainability is in question. In other words, it has failed to generate any profits as a state asset paid for by the taxpayer’s money. According to the NPP youth leader Chathuranga Abeysinghe, who sits in the NPP Executive Council together with his father, such losses are entirely due to mismanagement by the leadership of all such loss-making enterprises and, therefore, must be punished by executing them.
To make matters worse for Mahesh Amlean, there is a question mark whether the huge losses at SLINTEC are due to the income from the patents developed by the research staff of SLINTEC being recouped by either MAS or other private stakeholders as the major owners of such patents.
If so, it will be a major corruption where the private parties have gained financial benefits through state funding. The NPP promises a corruption-free country under their regime. In his tirade, he vows to destroy the neo-liberal economy that is being enjoyed by the likes of Mahesh Amalean.
Given the infamous history of mass executions carried out by the JVP turned NPP in 1988-89 and their recent attacks on local business people and property during the atrocious Aragalaya, this violent threat comes as a serious red alert to all leading business persons who have held and/or holding leadership positions in enterprises with a state stake.
All polls indicate that the JVP/NPP leader, Mr Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, is leading the presidential race. Mr Chathuranga Abeysinghe was an employee of MAS Holdings.
Eranda Ginige
*The writer is a social entrepreneur and former presidential advisor. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
