COLOMBO, April 15 -- Former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake has alleged that irregularities linked to National Development Bank (NDB) may extend beyond a single institution, potentially involving between five and seven banks and up to nine non-banking financial institutions.

Raising a privilege issue in Parliament, Karunanayake said what he described as a "systematic failure of accountability" by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka had enabled the alleged multi-billion-rupee fraud to spread across the wider financial sector.

He accused the central bank and other relevant authorities of engaging in a "serious and continuing obstruction" of his parliamentary duties by failing to respond to multiple questions he had raised over several months...