Probes and probity

Saturday 9th October, 2021

The Opposition may have expected the government to defend Thirukumar Nadesan and his wife Nirupama Rajapaksa openly over the Pandora Papers revelations and get into a bigger political mess in the process. But the latter chose to act intelligently, for once. It ordered a probe—not out of any genuine desire to ascertain the truth and institute legal action against anyone but in what appears to be a bid to deflect criticism.

An otherwise lethargic Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) has swung into action. Asked by this newspaper what action it would take in respect of the Pandora Papers allegations against Nirupama and her husband, the CIABOC said it could act only if a complaint was lodged. In fact, it is not in a position to initiate an inquiry or an investigation of its own volition thanks to the draconian 20th Amendment, which stripped it of some vital powers. No one had made a complaint by that time. Curiously, a presidential order galvanised the CIABOC into action. It summoned Nadesan and recorded a statement yesterday.

Interestingly, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a member of the ruling family, which its political rivals are all out to implicate in the questionable offshore financial transactions of Nadesan. He has also asked the CIABOC to submit a report to him within one month!

It would have been much better if the CIABOC had been able to probe the Pandora Papers disclosure on its own. All Executive Presidents have not cared to rise above partisan politics and act impartially, and therefore presidential directives are not devoid of politics.

Not all shell company owners are engaged in criminal activities; but most of them are responsible for tax evasion, which needs to be investigated separately. Most of those involved in offshore financial transactions have caused huge losses to their home countries by parking their money overseas illegally. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which carried out the Pandora Papers investigation, has said the losses at issue range from USD 5.6 trillion to USD 32 trillion. The International Monetary Fund is of the view that the losses that tax havens cause to many countries around the world could be as high as USD 600 billion a year. The existence of the offshore world aggravates global poverty and inequalities because it deprives the developing nations of some of their tax revenue, as we pointed out in a previous comment. Therefore, besides the ongoing CIABOC probe, there must be a multi-agency investigation into the ICIJ revelations about Sri Lankans, like the one India has ordered.

Offshore transactions are extremely complex processes, and if the CIABOC is capable of conducting a thorough probe into the allegations against Nadesan and submit a report thereon to the President within one month, there is no reason why it should take years to finish other probes that do not involve such complex operations.

If the CIABOC is to carry out its duties and functions free from political influence, it should be made independent of the Executive President as well. It may be recalled that all political parties, represented in Parliament, sank their differences and deprived the national anti-graft commission of the power to inquire into allegations of bribery or corruption sua sponte, in 1994. This power was restored by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution (2015), which made it ‘lawful for the Commission … to inquire into, or investigate an allegation of bribery or corruption, whether on its own motion or on a written complaint made to it.’ There were flaws in the 19th Amendment that had to be rectified, but the salutary provisions like the aforesaid one should have been retained. The 20th Amendment, which was crafted to strengthen the executive presidency, stripped the CIABOC of that power again. Otherwise, there would have been no need for the President to order the CIABOC to initiate an investigation into the ICIJ findings anent Sri Lanka, and, above all, the probe would have been more acceptable to the public.