Story of SupremeSAT 🛰️ and PM Harini

⭕ May of 2012, SupremeSAT registered with the BOI with a stated investment of Rs 1.828 billion.

⭕ Ownership: Supreme Global Holdings (80%) and Supreme SL Investment (20%). The project was led by R. M. Manivannan, who owns Supreme Global Holdings, along with Jaya Sudhir and Alberto de Simone.

⭕ Manivannan appointed Rohitha Rajapaksa (youngest son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa) as chief technical director and issued him shares through Dycer International, a company 100% owned by Rohitha.

⭕ Jaya Sudhir Jayaram, a Malaysian national reportedly linked in media and UN reporting to fraud and money laundering, was alleged to have paid $10 million in bribes to Saddam Hussein’s regime in the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal. He was also reportedly stopped at Sri Lanka’s airport with USD 50,000 in undeclared cash and released without penalty, reportedly due to political influence.

⭕ Supreme SL Investment has almost no public footprint, no visible active operations, and is known mainly for holding shares in SupremeSAT typical of a shell or special-purpose vehicle (SPV).

⭕ Publicly available information shows no clear link from Supreme Global Holdings to credible revenue-generating operations, satellite or otherwise. They have been involved in crypto and other ventures, with little evidence of a conventional operating business or about their clients.

⭕ The same group behind SupremeSAT launched another large real estate project - Horton Square using the same offshore setup, the same principals, and additional political links. Horton Square brought back Manivannan, Jayaram, and de Simone. The BOI rejected the project due to concerns over these directors, but the UDA still approved it.

⭕ The company used an offshore firm Paradise Island Holdings Ltd., based in the UAE and nominee directors, obscuring the ultimate owners. One director was Renuka Shanmuganathan, whose sister-in-law is Nirupama Rajapaksa, a cousin of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

⭕ The land for Horton Square was bought from Purni Edwards, wife of Rienzie Edwards, who was indicted by the U.S. government in 2016 in connection with an alleged $50 million international fraud scheme using shell companies and offshore bank accounts, including transfers to Sri Lanka.

⭕ SupremeSAT-1” wasn’t a separate Sri Lankan spacecraft. It was capacity leased on ChinaSat-12 (which had earlier been ordered as Apstar-7B). The leased capacity was then co-branded/marketed as “SupremeSAT-1."

⭕ In Parliament, Prime Minister Harini stated the revenue as Rs 343.9 billion, but Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe corrected the figure to Rs 343.9 million later. Regardless of the figure, it reflects the company’s revenue, not the revenue for Sri Lanka.

⭕ The government should not blindly accept documents submitted to or from the BOI. PM Harini should have realized, even while reading, that these numbers are questionable. This raises real concerns about the PM's financial literacy.

⭕ BOI companies do not pay income tax in Sri Lanka during their concession periods. This private company used BOI tax-holiday status to extract profits while contributing nothing to the national treasury.

⭕ Having companies like these under the BOI is solely to get income-tax concessions, with little to no oversight, and the government has granted their associates BOI company status while the BOI is not doing due diligence on commitments.

⭕ The pattern: Foreign or politically connected entities register with the BOI, claim massive “investments,” generate tax-free revenue and legal cover to operate under the shadow, transfer profits offshore, and leave Sri Lanka with zero benefit.

⭕ There are genuine companies under the BOI, yes but many others abuse tax concessions, misreport finances, and operate with zero oversight.

At least something good may come of this: the government might audit the BOI, review every agreement and commitment, and clean house...

#SriLanka #BOI