Isn’t there corruption in Sri Lanka?

By Usvatte-aratchi

The IMF and IBRD, when they lend money soon, will impose a condition: an accountant and a lawyer will be appointed by them to ensure that there will be no corruption when the government of Sri Lanka will spend that money. The visiting IMF team laid down a condition that when an Extended Financial Facility will eventually be provided, there shall be no corruption in its disbursement. A few days later Fitch Ratings, a capital markets rating company, pronounced themselves on the same subject. Last week, Najib, the former prime minister of Malaysia was sentenced to prison for corruption consisting of stealing $5 billion from 1MDB, a sovereign wealth Fund. Earlier, Goldman Sachs had paid the state of Malaysia for the bank’s part in the scandal. Kirchner of Argentine is on trial for corruption although she is campaigning to become the president of her country. Argentine has often been under IMF care. Several weeks ago, a court in US convicted a former Sri Lanka Ambassador to US of financial fraud in the US. The crime had been committed in transactions using Sri Lanka tax payers’ money for the purchase of new premises for the embassy in DC. In Sri Lanka, the prosecution could not find evidence to obtain a conviction of the same man of any offence. Anura Kumara Dissanayake of JVP, both at public meetings and in Parliament, has spoken extensively of pervasive corruption in government. Aragalaya , repeatedly and emphatically, denounced widespread corruption in government.

The system of judicial administration has consistently failed to bring before competent courts the evidence necessary for judges to convict those charged with corruption. President Wickremasinghe in his address to Parliament a few weeks ago failed to see the trumpeting pink elephant of corruption, with a Pohottuva in his trunk, romping in his sumptuous living room in President’s House . Similarly, in his address to the House when presenting a Supplementary Budget for 2022, he failed to see a problem of widespread corruption in government. On neither occasion did he speak one word about it.

The president will celebrate the 75th Independence Day of Sri Lanka. One appreciates his sense of achievement, after a long and arduous journey uphill. But one also asks what sort of achievements of Sri Lanka he and the public celebrate on 4th February 2023. How can we celebrate with any sense of dignity our ill reputation of a society rotten with corruption and shaken by violence?

Manifestly, the authorities in Sri Lanka are wearing glasses so coloured as not to see bribery as a crime. They also fail to see the violence that envelops this society which pretends a false religiosity. We vie for a place in the same league as Equatorial Guinea, CAR and South Africa. If the legislative and execute branches of government refuse to see widespread corruption as a severe problem, the judicial branch can do little. If all branches of government fail, what alternative is there for the people but direct action? Mr. President, this willful neglect of the fatal malady of your government does not bode well for its robust health.