Friday 11th October, 2024

Daisy Achchi’s bag of gems or menik malla has been catapulted to the centre of public discussion again due to a war of words between NPP trade union heavyweight Wasantha Samarasinghe and SLPP National Organiser Namal Rajapaksa. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Daisy Achchi has become a household word following an absurd claim the Rajapaksas made in a bid to justify the acquisition of their wealth, Daisy being the grandmother of the young members of the clan. The Rajapaksas claimed that Daisy had received a bagful of precious stones from an unknown person.

Daisy Achchi’s stash of gems has since become an epitome of audacity of politicians who have a very low opinion of the intelligence of the public. Political leaders who have acquired assets in a questionable manner and avoided accountability by making atrociously false claims must be made to account for their wealth. No government has made a serious effort to probe the assets of their opponents and bring them to justice for the illegal acquisition of wealth. The UNP-led Yahapalana government had the public believe that it was probing its rivals’ assets, but did not go the whole hog; Maithripala Sirisena, who won the presidency in 2015 by promising to throw the Rajapaksas behind bars for corruption, etc., joined forces with them three years later.

During the 2015 presidential election campaign, he claimed the younger members of the Rajapaksa family had bought a ‘golden horse’ (a palomino?) from Buckingham Palace and kept it in Nuwara Eliya, where they flew in state-owned choppers during weekends to ride it. He did not care to trace the horse or investigate the chopper rides after being ensconced in power. One may recall how the Yahapalana regime turned its operations to trace the undeclared assets of its opponents into a political circus; it went so far as to have coconut estates dug up in search of luxury cars believed to have been buried there! The Prime Minister in the Yahapalana government, Ranil Wickremesinghe, became President with the help of the Rajapaksa family seven years later! Thus, why politicians do not go all out to throw one another in prison for corruption is clear. The public became disillusioned and their resentment became rocket fuel for the JVP-led NPP’s recent presidential election campaign in 2024.

Now, the NPP is coming under increasing pressure to honour its election pledge to prosecute the corrupt and recover the stolen funds. It cannot convince the public that it needs time, for it kept on claiming, months before the 21 Sept. presidential election, that it would win the presidency for sure and was ready to nab the corrupt immediately afterwards. It said it had 400 files containing evidence against the corrupt and has since pledged to take action against the beneficiaries of Daisy Achchi’s mysterious riches. The new government however ought not to be selective in probing politicians’ assets.

It is public knowledge that the UNP stood to gain from the Treasury bond scams under the Yahapalana government; its key members benefited from the largesse of the Treasury bond racketeers while the UNP and the JVP were honeymooning. Will the JVP/NPP government order a fresh probe into the Treasury bond scams and do everything in its power to have former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran extradited from Singapore to stand trial for those rackets. It should make a formal request to Singapore for his extradition. The SJB went on a spending spree before the presidential election, giving away various things. It has not accounted for the funds it spent generously to further its political interests. It must be made to explain how those funds were raised.

Most of those who have been in power over the past several decades acquired assets, which they have not accounted for. Worse, they obtained compensation for their houses destroyed by mobs in 2022 although most of them had not disclosed how funds were raised for building them. The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe government should have ascertained whether those assets had been lawfully acquired before compensating their owners. What does the NPP administration propose to do about this?

The JVP/NPP leaders claim to be beneficiaries of the generosity of some individuals who, they claim, look after their needs by gifting them various things including shirts, trousers and shoes. Its opponents have demanded to know whether it received donations from any business tycoons for the construction of its party headquarters. The JVP/NPP, too, owes the public an explanation as regards its funds.