Editorial

Will exposés become fish wrappers?

Published

5 years ago

2021/10/17

Journalists the world over are familiar with an expression worn thin over decades and more: ‘yesterday’s news is only fit to wrap the fish in!’ That’s exactly what’s happened to the Pandora Papers that made big news a few days ago in this country and many others globally who’s leaders/citizen had been fingered. A week later, with three weeks yet to go for the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption to respond to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s one month’s deadline for a report, the whole business is nearly forgotten. Hardly a bleat is heard. Readers would remember that the Panama Papers where a massive data base of some 11.5 million files from Mossac Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm made global waves; and a number of Lankans and companies incorporated here were named. But this is now less than a dim memory. That was over five years ago and, as far as we know nothing much has happened since, anywhere, about that exposé, also by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Will that material, and this, eventually become fish wrappers?

However that be, there are many matter that arise that deserve attention not only from governments but also from the wider public. All of us are aware of the numbered bank accounts that have made Swiss banks both rich and famous. Such accounts, with multi-digit numbers known only to the client and selected bankers, add another layer to banking secrecy. But they are not completely anonymous. That’s because the name of the client is still recorded by the bank and is subject to what’s called “limited warranted disclosure.” Such hiding holes are widely sought by the wealthy to stash away both legitimate and ill-gotten wealth from the prying eyes of governments, law enforcement agencies, taxpeople and sometimes even spouses. Lesser known is the fact that such facilities are no longer the exclusive preserve of the Swiss. They are now available in over a dozen countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Apart from numbered bank accounts, there are many tax havens in several parts of the world widely used for both money laundering and tax avoidance. They are useful not only to those anxious to exploit their possibilities but also to the service-providing countries to enrich national coffers.

Since the Pandora Papers hit the headlines, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has made several noteworthy speeches into the expose` which linked hundreds of Pakistanis, including members of his cabinet to wealth secretly moved through offshore companies. Khan has promised action if wrongdoing is established just as much as our own president has done. Ownership of offshore holding companies is not illegal in most countries including, we believe, Sri Lanka. But they are frequently used to avoid tax liability or to maintain secrecy about large and shady financial transactions. Even before the smelly stuff hit the fan with the publication of the Pandora Papers, Khan addressing the UN International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity Panel called upon countries he termed tax havens to “adopt decisive actions” and return wealth looted from developing countries. Saying that the figures were staggering, he estimated that perhaps a trillion dollars were siphoned off in this manner and much of that were bribes received by corrupt white collar criminals. Demanding that the bleeding of poor and developing countries must stop, he urged that stolen assets of developing countries including proceeds of corruption, bribery and other crimes must be returned immediately.

Where Sri Lanka is concerned, the liberalization of the economy in 1978, not 1977 as commonly stated, resulted not only in devaluation of the currency and the stupendous increase in the money supply, but also the commencing of massive and expensive infrastructure and other development projects of which the Accelerated Mahaweli Development was perhaps the largest. This resulted in the award of gigantic contracts on a scale previously not known in this country. Such contracts also meant commissions, and what these were and who collected them was largely unknown. Since then we have had many other very large projects. While the country knows what the taxpayer paid for these as revealed in the figures presented to parliament and budgeted for, what kind of commissions were paid and to whom, is information largely outside the public domain. While decision-making politicians and perhaps bureaucrats are widely suspected to have been beneficiaries of such loot, companies, some well known and others less so, have been identified as agents of various contractors. Whether such funds were duly accounted for and the taxes thereon paid remains unknown.

Whistles have been blown here but we have unfortunately not been able to obtain the cooperation, for example of the Government of the United Arab Emirates about loot allegedly stashed in Dubai. Nobody can expect companies providing haven to ill-gotten gains to cooperate with bloodhounds on their trail. Imran Khan’s appeal to tax haven providers can only fall on deaf years as has happened before and will continue to happen in the future. Third world countries claiming to pursue criminals who had bled their economies will only do so if the quarry belongs to an opposing camp. Governments will only chase opponents and when they change, investigations already undertaken, not without influence of ruling powers, will be abandoned as we have too often seen. As the late Sunil Perera of the Gypsies so memorably sang, Lankawa ehema thamai, I don’t know why!

All News Advertisement

Editorial

Legislature’s meek submission to overbearing Executive

Published

18 hours ago

2026/04/24

Thilina Walpola

Friday 24th April, 2026

The Opposition is intensely resentful that the government has thwarted its attempt to have President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also Minister of Finance, summoned before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) probing the green-channelling of 323 red-flagged freight containers in the Colombo Port in January 2025. When the Opposition members of the PSC proposed that President Dissanayake be summoned, their government counterparts put the proposal to a vote and defeated it.

The Opposition’s abortive bid was not devoid of politics, but Sri Lanka Customs, which released the aforementioned containers without mandatory inspections, is under the Finance Ministry. Therefore, the Finance Minister is accountable to Parliament and must answer questions from the container PSC, as it were.

The dispute between the government and the Opposition over the container scandal has more to it than a mere political argy-bargy. It reflects a deeper constitutional issue. The Constitution requires the President to attend Parliament, but frequent politically strategic interventions by him or her dilutes the spirit of the separation of powers and strengthens the Executive’s dominance over the legislature. This practice is bad for the wellbeing of democracy. The President has used, if not misused, Articles 32 and 33 of the Constitution to dominate Parliament in this manner over the years.

The JVP, on a campaign for abolishing the Executive Presidency, played a pivotal role in introducing the 17th, 19th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution to reduce the executive powers of the President, but ensconced in power, it is now silent on its pledge to restore a parliamentary system of government.

The Opposition has claimed that President Maithripala Sirisena testified before the PSC which probed the Easter Sunday terror attacks in 2019, and therefore President Dissanayake ought to do likewise. What it has left unsaid is that President Sirisena made a statement at the 20th meeting of that PSC, held at the Presidential Secretariat, on 20 September 2019. The PSC report has referred to the event as a ‘discussion’. Sirisena, who secured the executive presidency, promising to reduce the powers vested therein, should have refrained from undermining the legislature and visited the Parliament complex to testify before the PSC, as the Minister of Defence.

The least President Dissanayake can do to avoid the public perception that he, too, is undermining the legislature is to follow the precedent created by President Sirisena. Ideally, he ought to appear before the PSC in the parliamentary complex in keeping with his government’s much-touted commitment to upholding accountability and the separation of powers. After all, when the question of summoning President Sirisena before the PSC on the Easter Sunday attacks came up, the then JVP MP Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, who was also a PSC member, defended the rights of Parliament. He declared that the PSC had the authority to summon anyone for questioning.

Now that the government members of the container PSC have gone out of their way to defend President Dissanayake, the question is whether they can be expected to allow an impartial investigation to be conducted and help uncover anything detrimental to the interests of the President and the ruling coalition.

By scuttling the Opposition PSC members’ effort to have President Dissanayake testify before the container PSC, and undermining the legislature in the process, the JVP-NPP government has unwittingly reminded the public of its unfulfilled election pledge to introduce a new Constitution, inter alia, “abolishing the executive presidency and appointing a president without executive powers by the parliament” (A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, NPP Election Manifesto, p. 109).

Editorial

Terrorism financing and terrorist assets

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/23

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 23rd April, 2026

Sri Lanka has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening its national security and countering terrorism financing with renewed focus on Targeted Financial Sanctions (TFS), according to media reports quoting the Ministry of Defence. Sri Lanka’s compliance with the implementation of the TFS is in line with UN Security Council Resolutions, we are told. The irony of the aforementioned government announcement, which has come close on the heels of the seventh anniversary of the Easter Sunday terror attacks, may not have been lost on political observers.

The targeted financial sanctions, imposed on individuals and organisations suspected of involvement in terrorism or the financing of terrorism, include freezing assets, limiting access to financial systems and preventing designated persons or entities from conducting any form of financial activity within the country. Once a designation is published through a Gazette notification, a legally binding freezing order comes into effect. This results in the immediate freezing of bank accounts and restrictions on the use, transfer, sale, or leasing of movable and immovable assets, including property, vehicles, jewellery, and other valuables.

Eliminating the scourge of terrorism financing is a prerequisite for the success of any anti-terror campaign. Hence, the focus of all operations to defeat terrorism is on following the money trail, which is a forensic investigation technique used to trace financial transactions from their origin to the final destination, uncovering corruption, money laundering, or terrorism. In the case of the Easter Sunday terror strikes, it was not difficult to find out who had funded the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) terror campaign. Sri Lankan investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US confirmed that the Ibrahim family, two of whose members carried out suicide bomb attacks, had financed the TNJ terror project.

The JVP-NPP government has drawn criticism from its political opponents for shielding the head of the Ibrahim family, Mohamed Ibrahim, who was a JVP National List nominee in 2015. Taking exception to the release of the assets seized from the residence of a suspect in the Easter Sunday terror strikes, the Opposition politicians have called for confiscating the wealth of the Ibrahim family and using it to compensate the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Interestingly, former President Maithripala Sirisena, ex-Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, former IGP Pujith Jayasundara, former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena, and ex-State National Intelligence Service Chief Sisira Mendis have paid compensation to the Easter carnage victims, as per a Supreme Court order, for their failure to prevent the terror attacks.

The offence of financing terrorism is no less serious than the act of carrying out terrorist attacks. There is reason to believe that the issue of financing the Easter Sunday terror campaign has not been probed properly. The need for a fresh investigation into this vital aspect of the carnage cannot be overstated. However, the incumbent dispensation cannot be expected to open a can of worms by ordering a probe into this issue, and therefore a future government will have to get to the bottom of it.

It must also be found out what has become of the assets of the other terrorist organisations which raised colossal amounts of funds in this country. The LTTE and the JVP carried out numerous robberies, including bank heists, and obtained protection money from many people. They also robbed money and gold jewellery from the public. There have been election promises to trace the overseas assets of former rulers, but no serious effort has been made to fulfil these pledges. Illegal assets stashed away overseas must be brought back. Curiously, no political party has pledged to trace the missing assets of the former terrorist groups.

Editorial

‘Cops and Robbers’: Role reversals

Published

3 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wednesday 22nd April, 2026

The Opposition is in overdrive, attacking the JVP-NPP government, left, right and centre, over the coal procurement scam, which has resulted in a huge increase in the cost of power generation and electricity tariffs, besides bleeding the Treasury. The government has said the additional cost of burning diesel to produce electricity to meet the Norochcholai generation shortfall will not be passed on to the public, but the funds it is spending on diesel liberally for power generation belong to the public, and not to the JVP or the NPP. It is the people who bear the losses and the cost overruns in power generation caused by the coal procurement scandal.

What we are witnessing is a textbook example of the link between unbridled power and corruption. Allegations of corruption against the incumbent government, which came to power promising to usher in good governance, remind us of a rhetorical question in Juvenal’s Satires: Who guards the guards? (Quis custodiet ipso custodes?) It is being argued in some quarters that self-policing is the way out, but what Juvenal has highlighted is the problem of ensuring accountability at the top as well as the need for effective checks and balances. Guards simply do not care to guard themselves. Acton’s dictum about the correlation between power and corruption also points to the fact that those who wield unchecked power tend to believe they are above the law, beyond criticism and always right. Hence, steamroller parliamentary majorities and the overconcentration of power in one or two political institutions are detrimental to the interests of a country that lacks robust democratic safeguards. This has been Sri Lanka’s experience.

A collective of Opposition parties has pledged to defeat the JVP-NPP government, probe the coal procurement scandal, etc., and throw the corrupt elements in the current dispensation behind bars. Some Opposition bigwigs appeared on television yesterday and made a pledge to that effect. The corrupt no doubt must be brought to justice, but pity a nation that has to rely on the corrupt to punish the corrupt, one may say with apologies to Brecht. Most of the self-righteous Opposition politicians on a crusade against corruption are tainted. They faced serious allegations of corruption while in power. If their corrupt deals and ill-gotten assets had been properly probed, they would have been in jail.

The Opposition politicians who are out for former Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody’s scalp for his involvement in the coal scam and hauling President Anura Kumara Dissanayake over the coals for shielding him, also have a history of defending the corrupt. SLPP politicians are at the forefront of the Opposition’s anti-corruption campaign. During the previous government, they unashamedly shielded the then Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, who was embroiled in a procurement racket, and even defeated a no-faith motion against him. They are demanding to know how some JVP full-timers have acquired valuable assets including houses. They themselves are well-heeled, full-time politicians, aren’t they? They have bigger houses than the JVP leaders. How have they acquired their wealth?

Some of the Opposition grandees campaigning against corruption and condemning the incumbent rulers for corrupt deals had the chutzpah to deny the Treasury bond scams (2015) and go so far as to defend the culprits during the UNP-led Yahapalana government. They went to the extent of trying to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the bond scams by having a slew of footnotes incorporated into it. They also sullied their reputations by defending the Yahapalana administration accused of various questionable deals. Interestingly, from 2015 to 2019, they were in league with the JVP leaders who are currently in power. The JVP propped up the Yahapalana government despite the latter’s involvement in the Treasury bond scams and failure to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage. The SLPP, which came to power, vowing to have the UNP leaders jailed over the bond scam, joined forces with the latter in 2022 to retain its hold on power.

Thus, it may be seen that the ruling party politicians and their Opposition counterparts are driven by expediency and not principle; they are ready to do anything to safeguard self-interest despite their moral grandstanding and rhetoric.