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.

Deshabandu Tennekoon, the suspended Inspector General of Police, surrendered to the Matara Magistrate last Wednesday after leading the force he once headed on a merry chase for some 20 days, resulting in a lot of egg on the face of the police. He did so after unsuccessfully moving Court of Appeal earlier in the week seeking a writ order to prevent his arrest. This was obviously a last ditch attempt which failed. No doubt fearing that he could not hide for ever, Tennekoon turned up at the court house early on Wednesday morning, reportedly in a Benz car although there is no confirmation of that, staying in the court room until his case was taken up later in the day.

Although we believe the police could have arrested him when he turned up in court, as is known to have been done in the past, that did not happen. Tennekoon would have no doubt been prepared for such an eventuality. The prosecutor went on record that the fugitive should have been in a holding cell rather than seated in the open court room. At the end of the day he was remanded till April 3 and taken away to the Angunukolapelessa jail under special escort by the prison authorities who have been directed to ensure his safety in custody. This is an obvious precaution given the suspect’s notoriety and it was not long ago that a suspect was shot dead as he stood on a courtroom dock. Also, many grudges are known to have been settled in jail in the past.

Deshabandu Tennekoon is not the only high profile fugitive who has recently evaded the long arm of the law. Readers will no doubt remember that the woman accomplice, disguised as a lawyer, who smuggled in the firearm used in the recent court room killing in a hollowed out copy of the Criminal Procedure Code, is not yet in custody although an attractive reward for finding her has been offered. Notably no such inducement was offered by law enforcers for the arrest of their fugitive chief. But a lot else has been done in searching his home where some 795 bottles of foreign liquor and 214 bottles of wine had been found. These salacious details were presented to parliament last week by Public Security Minister Ananda Wijeypala who is the political authority responsible for the police. Since we are now into a New Year and Christmas was only recently past, Tennekoon probably received these as gifts which are customary in this season particularly to those holding high office and others who can do favours. The minister, no doubt, derived much satisfaction in revealing these details to parliament just as much as his cabinet colleagues have relished exposing misdoings of predecessor governments during the ongoing committee stage on the 2025 budget debate.

It is not unusual for police to take family members of wanted suspects as hostages until the quarry is either arrested or surrenders. This was not done in Tennekoon’s case although his family had been questioned about his whereabouts. Also there have been other past instances of high profile wanted suspects evading arrest for much longer periods than the suspended IGP. One such was Rear Admiral Royce de Mel, a former commander of the then Royal Ceylon Navy, who was wanted in connection with the abortive 1962 coup d’etat. De Mel successfully evaded arrest for several weeks before he was surrendered to the specially created trial-at-bar that tried the accused by his counsel, GG Ponnambalam Q.C. Many years after de Mel’s death, details of where he hid in a remote plantation bungalow were published in the media.

While Tennekoon was in hiding, there were threats of confiscation of his property and punishment to those who helped him were made although it was not clear whether such measures were enforceable or not. The public will now have to await the unraveling of the usually prolonged legal process before being able to see where this matter will eventually end. But it is patently clear that Deshabndu Tennekoon’s was a rank bad appointment to the position of IGP. He had been found guilty of torture by the supreme court in December, 2023 in what was described as a “historic judgment” where it was held that he was “personally responsible” for acts of torture against a suspect in custody. Before this judgment there were other allegations of his being complicit in attacking peaceful protests and making death threats to journalists and much more.

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe resisted appointing Tennekoon as IGP extending the tenure of his predecessor, CD Wickremeratne for three month periods several times before he caved into demands by a Tennekoon patron before finally making the appointment. But this also necessitated some sleight of hand at the Constitutional Council (CC) which had to approve the appointment. Then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene counted the votes of two absent members of the CC as noes (rather than absent) against Tennekoon declared a tie and then registered his own casting vote to record approval.

This demonstrated that even the checks and balances safety mechanism of the CC has been aborted for a clearly bad appointment to be made. It is to be hoped that such unfortunate situations will not be allowed to arise in the future.

Saturday 22nd March, 2025

A protest by a group of unemployed graduates has been going on for days near Parliament. The protesters are urging the JVP-led NPP government to fulfil its promise to employ them in the state sector. The government has apparently adopted the proverbial ostrich posture, hoping that the problem will resolve itself without its intervention. But the protesters say they will not go away until the government carries out its promise to them.

There was a heavy police presence near the unemployed graduates’ protest yesterday with a water cannon vehicle at the ready. One can only hope that there won’t be a confrontation between the protesters and the police.

The government has announced its decision to recruit 30,000 more workers into the public service, and it is only natural that the unemployed graduates have taken to the streets, demanding jobs. They are obviously eyeing some of the vacancies which, the government says, have arisen in the state sector.

The state service is already overstaffed as successive governments have used it as a source of employment for their supporters over the years. There is a pressing need to downsize the unproductive, ever-burgeoning public service, which is a drain on the state coffers. We already have one state employee for every 15 citizens.

The government has taken a census of some crop-raiding animals, such as monkeys and peafowl, claiming that it needs reliable data to tackle the problem of depredation in a scientific manner. Curiously, it has not cared to carry out a comprehensive survey on state institutions to find out the excess workers in them and assess the efficiency of those outfits so as to streamline the public service. Progress will continue to elude this country unless its state service is rationalised urgently. Successive governments have baulked at doing so for fear of a political backlash. The UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004) tried to reform the state sector, but it was dislodged and its successor restored the status quo ante.

One’s sympathies are with the protesting unemployed undergraduates; they are some of the victims of the current education and political systems. Most products of Sri Lankan universities lack employability mostly due to deficiencies in the education system, which needs reform.

Students themselves are not without blame for this sorry state of affairs; most of them do not care to gain the skills demanded by the job market. They expect the state to employ them after their graduation. Governments over the decades have given university graduates jobs in the state sector for political reasons. But this practice cannot go on indefinitely, given severe resource constraints and increasing pressure from the international lending agencies to curtail state expenditure. The day may not be far off when the state service has to be downsized whether politicians like it or not.

The government will have to stop dilly-dallying and make a firm policy decision on state sector recruitments. Those who are to graduate from the state universities need to be told the bitter truth, in advance, that they will not be able to secure jobs in the state sector as of right. Unless the government reduces the public sector salary bill drastically to increase its revenue significantly, the economy will not be able to emerge from the present crisis. However, as for the graduates on the warpath near Parliament, the government is left with no alternative but to find ways and means of carrying out its election promise or face the consequences.

What Sri Lankan governments should do is to develop the national economy, bring in educational reforms, take steps to produce employable graduates and create employment opportunities for the country’s youth. Instead, they choose to expand the state sector at the expense of the economy. There’s the rub.