Sri Lanka: Secretary, Ministry of Wildlife Resources Conservation and Director General Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) have been accused of illegal elephant registration. Chairman, Species Conservation Centre Pubudu Weeraratne accused the Secretary, Wildlife Resources Conservation Udeni Wickremasinghe and Director General DWC, H.D. Ratnayake of aiding and abetting fraudsters to get elephant calves smuggled from national parks registered with the DWC and give the owner a legal license. “Although we have been accusing both these officials of their illegal involvement in elephant registration and also being the mastermind behind the loss of the elephant registration book, the investigations carried out by the Auditor General’s department has revealed these two officials involvement in the racket,” Weeraratne said. After an initial investigation, the Auditor General’s (AG) Department sent an audit query dated July 24 to the Secretary Wildlife Resources Conservation seeking answers to the rackets the Secretary and Director General were directly involved within 14 days. However their failure to send the answers for more than months prompt the AG’s department to send reminders seeking answers at the earliest. “At last the DWC has sent their responses to the AG’s Department last week. However the AG’s Department has come to a conclusion that the DWC responses were ridiculous when ample evidence is available to establish the allegations. The four elephant calves that are under investigation have been smuggled but not born to domesticated female elephants. The information submitted in the applications to obtain the licenses is not in the registration documents. However the DWC still does not want to admit the frauds they have committed and has tried to cover it up although the AG’s Department has not accepted the responses and has given another 14 days to send their answers,” Weeraratne said. Meanwhile, Attorney-at-law specialising in environmental issues Jagath Gunawardena said that it is unfortunate that both Wildlife Ministry and the DWC’s has failed to conduct an impartial inquiry and bring the culprits to book. “To hold an impartial inquiry both Ministry Secretary and the Director General DWC have to resign from their posts. It has also been proved that the lawyers have put their seals and signatures to bogus affidavits. These lawyers can be charged for the frauds and for violating the Oaths and Affirmation Ordinance,” Gunawardena said (Source : The Sunday Leader)