P. B. Jayasundera

Punchi Banda Jayasundara is a Sri Lankan economist and is currently the Secretary to the President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He was the former Permanent Secretary of the Treasury and Ministry of Finance on multiple occasions.

He was a past pupil of Maliyadeva College in Kurunegala and Jayasundera was graduated from University of Sri Lanka, Colombo in 1973 with a BA in Economics, he also gained Masters in Development Economics from Williams College in 1980 and a PhD in Economics from Boston University in 1984.

Central Bank

He joined the Central Bank of Sri Lanka as an economist in the 1974 and was later promoted to senior economist in the 1980s following his postgraduate studies in the United States.

Ministry of Finance

In 1990, he was seconded to the Treasury (Ministry of Finance) as an Economic Advisor in 1990 on secondment. In 1995 he was appointed as Director General, Department of Fiscal Policy and Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance and from 1997 to 1999 he served as the Deputy Secretary to the Treasury. He served as Secretary to the Treasury and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance from 1999 to 2001. He then served as Chairman, Public Enterprises Reform Commission, Senior Policy Advisor, Ernst & Young Sri Lanka, and as consultant to the IMF and the World Bank in Sri Lankan assignments. Jayasundera was reappointed as Secretary to the Treasury and Ministry of Finance in 2004.

Removal from public office

In 2008, he was found guilty by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka of a violation of procedure in the awarding of a large contract for the expansion of the Port of Colombo. The court barred him from holding any public office. As a result, he resigned from all public offices he held at the time.

In 2009, on invitation by then President Mahinda Rajapaksa to P.B. Jayasundera to once again take up the post of treasury secretary, he submitted a fundamental rights petition protesting the original decision to the Supreme Court, which was heard by the newly appointed Chief Judge who overturned the previous decision and allowed Jayasundera to be reinstated as secretary of the treasury.

Flight

On the day before the 2015 presidential election, at which Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated, Jayasundera left the country to Singapore. He was replaced the day after the election by Dr. R H S Samaratunga as secretary of the treasury.

Secretary to the President

Following the election of Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Jayasundera was appointed Secretary to the President on 19 November 2019.