Monday 24th March, 2025

Anything is possible in Sri Lanka. In the popular sci-fi movie, Transformers, we have alien robots disguising themselves as cars, etc. That is Hollywood fantasy, but in this land like no other, there has been a real-world instance where tractors became cars, as it were!

Sri Lanka, blessed with fecund land, is described as a country where seeds thrown anywhere sprout and mature in record time. Sadly, it has also become a fertile ground for corruption, which has eaten into its vitals. Politicians are usually blamed for this sorry state of affairs. They no doubt deserve all the flak they are receiving, but others, especially the critics of the political authority, public officials, and business leaders, are no better.

A mega racket involving vehicle imports has come to light. The COPA (Committee on Public Accounts) and the Auditor General’s Department have blown the lid off a racket, where some unscrupulous elements imported luxury vehicles by declaring them as tractors. They have disclosed several instances where hundreds of vehicles were imported fraudulently, and the Customs documents were falsified to cover up those rackets at the expense of the state coffers. Those revelations were made when the bigwigs of the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) were summoned before the COPA the other day. The falsification of vehicle registration documents by some corrupt officials in the DMT has also caused huge losses to the state. The COPA members and the Auditor General were right in laying into the DMT top brass, who could not provide satisfactory answers to the questions posed to them.

The COPA has promised tough action against corrupt elements in the Customs and the DMT. If corruption in vital state institutions can be eliminated, or at least minimised, the government will be able to increase its revenue significantly without burdening the public with tax and tariff increases.

The COPA and the Auditor General’s Department deserve praise for their revelations, but there is reason to believe that they are only scratching the surface of the problem of corruption in the Customs, the DMT, etc. Urgent action should be taken to ensure that freight containers that pass through the Customs undergo stringent tests, and nothing is left to chance. Worryingly, checks on shipping containers are characterised by a chronic laxity, which leaves room for corruption.

One may recall that in January 2025, as many as 324 red-flagged freight containers were released via the so-called green channel without being scanned. The reason given for green-chanelling them was that such extraordinary measures were essential to clear a backlog of containers caused by delays on the part of the Customs! The government also claimed that it had acted on a recommendation made by a three-member committee. Relying on the opinion of the officials of an institution notorious for corruption on such sensitive matters is like seeking the advice of a female clairvoyant to catch a thief who happens to be her own son, as a popular local saying goes.

Many containers had been released in a similar manner under the previous administration as well, the government said. But it was to discontinue such corrupt practices that the people ousted the last regime and voted the JVP-led NPP into office. We pointed out in a previous editorial comment that in 2013, a freight container that a businessman tried to have green-channelled by producing a letter from the Office of the then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne, was found to have a haul of heroin weighing as many as 131 kilos.

By opening that container and conducting a thorough check, which yielded the narcotics concealed in cans of grease, the Customs proved that they were not without honest, intrepid officers; such personnel should be recognised and rewarded. A large stock of cocaine weighing 218 kilos was detected among sacks of sugar in a freight container delivered to the Economic Centre, Ratmalana in 2017. This is why no cargo containers should be released via the green channel. They can carry anything––undeclared vehicles, lethal items, narcotics or hazardous waste.