11 May 2024 12:00 am
An anti-corruption march to mark World Anti-Corruption Day by civil society organizations.
This fact was patently clear on many occasions in several incidents. In November 2023, the Supreme Court ordered Acting IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon and three others including two police officers to pay a compensation of Rs. 2 million out of their funds to the petitioner, a former army soldier. Each respondent in the case was ordered to pay a compensation of Rs. 500,000 to the petitioner within six months from the date of judgment.
The Supreme Court held that respondents including Acting IGP Desabandu Tennakoon have violated the fundamental rights of petitioner W. Ranjith Sumangala by his illegal arrest, detention, and subjection to torture at the Mirihana Police Station, which was under the supervision of Deshabandu Tennakoon. Despite all these court’s ruling the present government appointed Desabandu Tennakoon as the IGP of the country.
Classic example
There is another classic example that the IMF had urged Sri Lanka to strengthen tax administration, scrap exemptions, and stamp out evasion to boost revenue and signal better governance. The failure to sign a staff-level agreement in the first review following the bailout package could delay the release of the second tranche of funds. The main reason was that the present government has been unable to pass a trustworthy law which can prevent corruption in the country.
About the sugar scam, the COPE had claimed that there would have been a serious scam when observing the data related to the sugar imports for the past three months from the Department of Customs. The Committee on Public Enterprises had questioned the Ministry of Finance officials about the suspicious timing of the tax increase on sugar imports by certain companies just before the tax hike. Accordingly, it has been revealed that a company that typically imported 2,000 metric tons of sugar monthly importing 10,000 metric tons in October 2023 just before the tax increase, reaped substantial gains as the tax jumped 200-fold from 25 cents to 50 Rupees.
During the Gotabaya regime, the contract to construct the Light Rail Transport Project was granted to the Japanese government and the abrupt cancellation of the said tenders awarded to them was yet another reason for the erosion of investor confidence. The current government made a great deal of diplomatic efforts to convince the Japanese government in this regard. The project is now slated to be resumed if the payment of cancellation cost of the project is paid back to the
Japanese government.
Corruption
Civil Society Activists alleged that the re-appointment of certain ministers proved that the same system is in place, despite the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The experience with regard to corruption in other countries is different.
In November 2023, Singapore‘s Transport Minister was arrested in connection with a top-level corruption probe that ensnared a billionaire hotel tycoon. Singapore has a powerful anti-grafts body and 61 –year-old S. Iswaran was arrested as part of an investigation.
In the case of the United Kingdom, John Penrose MP UK Parliament, resigned on June 6, 2022, claiming that Prime Minister Boris Johnson broke his ministerial code over “party gate”-which he described as the reason for resigning making him an anti-corruption champion. Penrose was an MP from the Conservative Party in Boris Jonson’s Parliament who worked as an anti-corruption champion. Penrome resigned as an anti-corruption champion on 6 June 2022, the same day the vote of no-confidence was taken on Boris Johnson. He said he could not defend a “fundamental breach of the ministerial code”. He also confirmed he would be voting against Johnson in the vote of no confidence.
In the case of India, it is seen that Delhi Minister Raaj Kumar Anand resigned on 10th April 2024 from the post accusing the party of corruption. He further says that he would not be joining any other party. The Delhi Social Welfare Minister Anand resigned from his post and also from the Aam Aadmi Party accusing the party of corruption. He resigned at a time when the party whose convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in jail in connection with the alleged liquor scam. The party was born to fight corruption but today the party itself is mired in corruption. “I can’t work in this government and I don’t want my name to be associated with this corruption”, he said.
Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc submitted his resignation in June 2023, after the ruling party found him responsible for violations and wrongdoings of officials under him.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) top 1% of Sri Lankans own 31% of the total personal wealth in the country while the bottom 50% only own less than 4%. It also says that 33.4% of the populace is grappling with vulnerability and deprivation concerning debt-related metrics. Fragile and uneven economic recovery has further exacerbated income and wealth inequalities in the country, placing Sri Lanka among the top five most unequal countries in the Asia Pacific. This is the result of the drama Sri Lankan politicians have staged for 76 years.