CIABOC responds to Justice Minister

Apropos our front-page news item ‘Justice Minister questions logic in keeping CIABOC’ in the Nov. 16 edition of The Island, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has sent us the following response:

“Hon. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Minister of Justice, Prisons Affairs and Constitutional Reforms has made four complaints to the Bribery Commission in 2019 against the then Minister of Education. All those four complaints were made during the period of the previous Commission. The present Commission was appointed in 2020 and assumed duties in December 2020.

“CIABOC receives 75-100 complaints in a week and the present Commission has taken initiatives to avoid unnecessary delays in the process of working on the complaints received by CIABOC, appointing a special committee of three Commission members, the Commission Secretary, Director (Investigations) and the representatives of the legal division. This Committee meets on every Tuesday to discuss the complaints received by CIABOC during the respective week.

“This Committee discusses in detail regarding the available materials of each complaint and decides accordingly to carry out a full investigation, preliminary investigation, refer to relevant institutions, to call for report from the respective institutions where necessary or to close the case depending on the gravity of each complaint.

“Because of the newly introduced mechanism, the present Commission is able to take prompt actions on the complaints received by CIABOC without unnecessary delays.

“Further, all four complaints made by the Hon Justice Minister to the CIABOC are being processed.”