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By Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge
I passionately detested dishonesty:I still do
I had very clear thoughts on this subject. I passionately detested dishonesty and still do and always wanted to eliminate corruption wherever I worked.
I have sometimes asked myself from where I acquired this deep dislike of dishonesty and corruption. I believe it comes from my upbringing at home and my training at school. I cannot remember my parents ever telling me specifically that we should be honest, nor pontificating to us about the morality of honesty and so on. However, we imbibed the values by which my parents lived and conducted themselves.
Once, during the mid-80s, I remember walking into my mother’s house to find her, with my sister and her husband, looking at several pieces of silverware, inherited from my paternal Grandfather. My mother was discussing the value of each piece as if she were to sell them. I was surprised that she desired to sell these family heirlooms and asked why she wanted to do so. She explained that she needed the money to cover the costs of a hip-replacement surgery to be done abroad.
Here was the Prime Minister of the country for a period of twelve years, who didn’t have a few lakhs for medical treatment. This was a person who had given up thousands of acres of land belonging to her family, under a law of her own volition, in order to serve the government and the people of this country.
I was saddened by her financial situation, but also immensely proud of my mother.
When I was a youth during the tenure of my father’s Premiership, my sister, brother, and I were each given a maximum of Rs. 3.50 per week as pocket money. We had to buy our reading books, spend on cinemas, and youthful activities with this money and no more. My mother gave us no more than two new party dresses and two daytime dresses per year.
We naturally, both through example and practice, learned the importance of simplicity and humility.
When in Government, my parents allowed the three children the use of only one official vehicle. I remember one incident when my sister had gone out in the vehicle, I requested a second vehicle as I wanted to visit friends. When I came back, I found my mother, the Prime Minister, fuming at Temple Trees. She asked me, “who do you think you are, to command government vehicles and use them like this?”
This incident marked me for life. While in office as Executive President, I insisted on following this example with my two children, allowing them both the use of only one government vehicle, during all of 11 years..
Whatever else they may or may not have been, my mother and father were scrupulously honest financially. They spent their time giving away what they had inherited to those who they thought were more deserving, even if it meant financial hardships for us later in life.
Sunethra, Anura, and I learned over the years through a process of watching and experiencing the happenings around us that it is totally unacceptable to rob what is not ours for any reason - that we cannot dream of getting ourselves paid illegally for services rendered to the public. On the contrary, it was ingrained in our mental and emotional systems that we had a sacred duty to serve the people, especially those who were less privileged than us.
Honest Governance
Looking back, my upbringing served as an excellent informal training in the execution of responsibilities I would be called upon to bear later in life. After I began public life - first as Assistant Director and then Director of the Land Reforms and Commission, later as Chairperson, Janawasa Commission under the Ministry of Agriculture, later as Chief Minister of the Western Province, and as Prime Minister and finally President of the country - nothing could spark the desire to request or receive financial or other material benefits that were not legally or officially due to me.
I remember recoiling in horror when a few businessmen, who managed to worm their way into my circles, suggested that I took a bribe for fixing tenders. One of them, who had managed to introduce himself to me through some relatives and was closely related to a member of my government and remains a Deputy Minister in the present government, used to harass me continually to instruct tender boards to fix the award of tenders to the company he represented. He would become visibly irate when I would refuse. One day he came to me with a foreign businessman who was engaged in supplying the government of Sri Lanka an essential food item since the Jayawardena government. I had heard rumors about this specific tender, which was fixed in such a manner that every time the said item was supplied to the government a certain commission was paid to the VIPs who negotiated the deal. When I was elected to be President of the country, I also assumed duties as Minister of Finance. As soon as I could, I walked into the Ministry of Finance and requested the relevant file. The ministry official who was involved in the deal claimed that he did not know the whereabouts of the file. I told the official that I’d like the file on my desk within the next hour. Miraculously, the lost file was found and on my table within the given time frame. A Committee of Investigation was duly appointed to study the award of the relevant Tender and if irregularities had occurred. If corruption was discovered, the deal would be off, and the perpetrators would be punished.
However, a few days after the Committee of Investigation was created, the businessmen in question arrived in my room at parliament without warning, accompanied by the foreign businessmen involved in the operation. I expressed a great degree of surprise that they had the gall to walk in without an appointment, for which the response from the two gentlemen was to place a parcel on my table stating that it contained five million USD. I felt something like an electric shock riveting through my spine. I was speechless for a moment, before I told them to immediately get out of my office with their money, if they didn’t want me to call the police.
I have since asked myself why I did not hand them over to the Police. The main reason at the time was probably because of the close family connections between the Sri Lankan businessman and a Deputy Minister and I didn’t want scandals in my government soon after we had assumed office. However, after a year had passed after I assumed duties as President, I was compelled to ask the said gentlemen never to set foot again in my residence or my office, and gave instructions to my security to never allow him into the presidential premises.
I am not in the habit of boasting about my actions, but somehow this story got around and had the beneficial effect of deterring any other aspiring commission agents from harassing me with requests for tenders and so on.
As my first term as President began to unfold, I quickly realized that honesty and transparency alone on the part of the Head of State would not be sufficient to eliminate or control corruption. Although it was vital to set an example for the rest of the government, two major additional actions were also required. Firstly, a framework of laws and regulations, to prevent the possibility of corruption, as well as to punish it, were required.
Secondly, the government needed to create systems and procedures, as well as institutions to prevent corruption and to block possible avenues for it.
Bribery & Corruption Commission
To address these two issues, within a few months of taking over the Government, we brought in several laws against corruption, while setting up the Commission for Bribery & Corruption with renewed strength and authority.
I personally got involved in studying existing tender procedures and systems and found that they were extremely confusing and unclear, leaving room for manipulation of due process. A Deputy Secretary of the Treasury was tasked with drawing up a Tender Procedure Document. This was completed within a year, approved by the cabinet and then sent by the President to all Ministries, with instructions that thereafter all tenders must follow stipulations in the said documents. In this two pronged approach, by dealing with corruption at both the legislative and bureaucratic level, we were able to reduce a considerable amount of corruption.
I took it upon myself to personally lead the charge against corruption, and I tried to use all of my powers as President to ensure good governance. For example, the usual practice for the appointment of tender boards was that they were nominated by the President from a pool of senior public servants. I personally ensured that tender boards, especially for big contracts, were comprised of senior officers known to be usually beyond corruption.
However, this precaution did not eliminate the need for constant review. If ever I learned that a certain tender board was being influenced unduly, I would send immediately for the relevant files, and study them, sometimes late into the the night. There were many occasions when I had to cancel an ongoing tender procedure when I found out about irregularities in the process. In one instance, I had to ask a Secretary to the Treasury, who was chairing a Tender Board for purchase of railway tracks, to resign from office as there was clear evidence of irregularity.
Very soon people began to be aware that there was one person in government they could trust and confide in, when ministers or officers indulged in corrupt practices.
After some years, we realized that personal supervision by the President could not be the only source of checks and balance in the tender process. The long nights poring over documents and files were draining and there was only so much one person could do. We set up the National Procurement Agency (NPA) under the leadership of three senior public servants. Its main objectives were to supervise and review tender procedures. Also any person could seize the NPA if they believed that some irregularity had occurred in the award of a tender. The NPA would then review the entire tender procedure and report to the President. Efficient governance must institutionalize important practices, and the NPA would become an important tool of good governance during my administration.
The second part of this article will appear on July 14
