Watchdogs and poodles

Saturday 29th August, 2020

The government and the Opposition have locked horns over the appointment of chairpersons to the parliamentary finance committees, especially the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE). Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has said the appointment of their heads should be left entirely to their members. On the face of it, this may look a very democratic way of sorting out the issue. But what the PM has left unsaid is that the government will be able to control all these committees if their members are allowed to decide on their heads because the SLPP representatives therein outnumber their Opposition counterparts.

Some government members have argued that, in the past, Opposition MPs were not appointed as chairpersons of the parliamentary watchdog committees. True, some governments chose to control them, but there have been some instances where Opposition MPs became their heads. This government came to power promising a break with the past, and therefore, it should not hesitate to let Opposition MPs head the finance committees if it is serious about practising good governance.

The first bond scam came to light because the special COPE on the questionable bond auctions was headed by an Opposition MP—D. E. W. Gunasekera. However, the appointment of Opposition MPs alone does not guarantee the independence of the parliamentary financial committees. The UNP has been given the credit for DEW’s appointment to that post, but the fact remains that it had Parliament dissolved so that the COPE report could not be taken up for debate. President Maithripala Sirisena did not appoint DEW a National List MP of the UPFA, following the 2015 general election, obviously under pressure from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was defending Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran involved in the bond rackets. Had the Gunasekera committee report been made public, the people would have realised the severity of the financial crimes and, perhaps the outcome of the 2015 general election would have been different, and the second bond scam could have been prevented.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government also allowed the appointment of an Opposition MP—Sunil Handunnetti (JVP)—as the COPE Chairman after the 2015 general election. The report issued by the COPE under his chairmanship on the bond scams, however, left out Wickremesinghe’s name. Handunnetti could have presented the Gunasekera committee report to Parliament together with his; he did not do so because the JVP was honeymooning with the UNP.

The JVP was only pretending to be as keen as mustard to help nab the bond racketeers; it was, as cynics say, floating like a bee and stinging like a butterfly where the UNP was concerned. Both the JVP and the UNP have paid the price for their political living together. Handunnetti and Wickremesinghe were defeated at the first general election they faced after the bond scams. The UNP MPs who used their positions as COPE members to defend the perpetrators of the biggest ever financial crime in the country have also lost their seats. Among them are Ajith P. Perera and Sujeewa Senasinghe. Ravi Karunanayake, too, has failed to retain his seat. Defeat is a fate worse than death for politicians craving power. Those who are currently in power had better bear in mind that the same fate is sure to befall them if they indulge in corruption at the expense of the public.

Politicians feel the need to protect public assets and fight corruption only when they are in the Opposition while their ruling party counterparts are on the lookout for the slightest opportunity to help themselves to state resources. Poodles do not make watchdogs, which must at least bark. This is why we believe that the COPE, etc., should be headed by Opposition MPs for want of a better alternative. However, these chairpersons have to have clean records. (We may be able to find a few of them.)