Is something wrong with Sri Lanka’s ‘disciplinary’ entities?

We refer to the article titled “Colombo International Financial City - Can Sri Lanka prevent money laundering?” authored by Mr. Amrit Muttukumaru which appeared on the September 15, 2016 issue of the .   

Mr. Muttukumaru, whose unflagging efforts to expose various instances of large-scale corruption are greatly admired by us, inter alia, stated in his article: “It is baffling why even those purportedly fighting corruption such as the Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance and its President Dr. A.C. Visvalingam, steer clear of naming, shaming and demanding accountability from the Partners concerned with PwC and Ernst & Young, faulted for grave professional misconduct by the Supreme Court, the Parliament’s watchdog COPE, the Attorney General and CA Ethics Committee itself in the scandalous SLIC privatization”.

  
The resolution of this apparent mystery is to be found right there in what he has written! If the four “disciplinary” entities referred to by him, with the vast powers that they possess under the law and their own rules of engagement do not take any action, we have to concede the obvious, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Sri Lankan State and many of its principal institutions. It stands to reason that the proper functioning of these entities would have to be achieved first, if instances of corruption and other ills are to be pursued effectively by the public.   

We are convinced that we shall not be able to make a significant impact, unless as a basic step, we get ourselves a Constitution that incorporates a logically-derived electoral system to enable the people to screen potential election candidates right at the outset, so as to forestall political parties from nominating an unconscionable number of ill-educated, grossly crooked and foul-mouthed characters to seek public office. There is no sign that any such provision will be built in.   

From the few hints that have been given, it was feared that the proposed new Constitution would contain a “supreme” Parliament and a Prime Minister, who would exercise as much or even more power so that Parliamentarians can formulate or amend laws to give themselves more and more rewards from the public purse, even though far too many of them attend to Parliamentary business only when their own personal commitments permit.   
It also appears that ultimate judicial power will be retained by Parliament and flow from there to a Judiciary that would thus effectively become subservient to the Legislature. There will be no definitive provision to maximize the separation of powers between the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary, which in our view, is a compulsory requirement if we are to eliminate the cancer of corruption that has taken such a strong hold in this country - from the lowest employee to the highest echelons of every institution.   

Without encroaching any further on the space available in your columns, we should like to take this opportunity of reassuring Mr. Muttukumaru that as far back as June 2008, we earnestly called upon the Organization of Professional Associations and the general body of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) to apply pressure on the Executive Council and the Ethics Committee of the ICASL to investigate the conduct of the ICASL’s senior members and clear the good name of this important professional body. (www.cimogg-srilanka.org) But neither institution has to our knowledge, done anything concrete in this regard.   
Dr A.C. Visvalingam   
President, Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG)   
[acvisva@gmail.com]