It is popularly said in this country that a politician out of power is like a ‘banana without skin’. These days, we see several such politicians being escorted in and out of various courts. They blatantly flouted the law with total impunity while in power, and roared like lions in Parliament and elsewhere. They may not have thought that they would have to face the consequences of their unlawful actions.

Deputy Solicitor General Lakmini Girihagama has made a shocking revelation before the Maligawatte Magistrate’s Court. Presenting to the court a report issued by a WHO-accredited laboratory in Germany, she said, on Thursday (19), it had been found that a stock of human immunoglobulin fraudulently procured under Keheliya Rambukwella’s watch as the Minister of Health, had no therapeutic efficacy and was contaminated with bacteria. Similarly, Rituximab, a cancer drug, procured in a similar manner, contained only sodium chloride, she said, informing the court that indictments would be filed before the Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar shortly.

It is heartening that the law and karma have caught up with at least some politicians and their associates.

Former Ministers Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Nalin Fernando have already been jailed for causing losses to the state by procuring carrom boards and checkerboards through Sathosa for distribution among sports clubs, ahead of the 2015 presidential election. Former North-Central Province Chief Minister S. M. Ranjith, and his sister-in-law, who was his private secretary, were sentenced to prison for misusing state funds while in power. Cases have been filed against several other former ministers and their cronies as well for corrupt deals, etc.

Cases against the aforementioned politicians were filed before last year’s regime change. The incumbent government has vowed legal action against three former Presidents over what has come to be dubbed a dairy cow scandal, which caused a loss of over one billion rupees to the state coffers, according to NPP politicians. One can only hope that the government will carry out its pledge to bring those politicians to justice, without making another about-turn, after gaining some political mileage. One of the NPP’s main election promises was to evict the former Presidents from the state-owned houses currently occupied by them and do away with their perks. It is now humming a different tune.

The present-day government politicians would do well to learn from the predicament of their political rivals languishing behind bars or facing legal action for corrupt deals and other such transgressions. When they lose power, they, too, will be like the proverbial ‘bananas without skin’; they will be left with no one to turn to. It may be recalled that during the previous government, the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe defended Rambukwella to the hilt, and even had a motion of no confidence against the latter defeated in Parliament. Legal action was instituted against Rambukwella because he became too embarrassing for the government to defend. Wickremesinghe has reportedly told the CID that Rambukwella misled the Cabinet and is therefore solely responsible for the procurement irregularities in question. His former Cabinet colleagues and political masters who threw their weight behind him while in power cannot absolve themselves of the blame for the procurement of fake drugs.

A committee, appointed to study the green-channellng of 323 red-flagged cargo containers in January 2025, under suspicious circumstances, has submitted its report. The reported findings of the committee confirm suspicions about the release of the containers without Customs inspection. The committee has recommended a further audit. This recommendation runs counter to the government’s claim that there was no wrongdoing. A future government is bound to reopen the probe into the questionable release of containers, and if any official tries to cover it up, he or she will be held answerable; such state employees will be without anyone to protect them. They will be compelled to reveal the truth under interrogation, the way some junior police personnel are doing at present before a committee probing their former boss, interdicted IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon. The predicament of some former Health Ministry panjandrums allegedly involved in the procurement scandal while in service will deter the state officials responsible for the controversial clearance of cargo containers from defending politicians.

It is hoped that the NPP government will go all out to have all the crooks who committed serious transgressions during the previous administrations brought to justice, and the politicians and officials accused of malpractices under the current dispensation will be dealt with similarly under a future government.

Saturday 21st June, 2025

The Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) has taken about 44 vehicles including 15 SLTB and private buses off the road, following a random vehicle inspection on the Hatton-Kandy road on 19 June. About 115 vehicles underwent roadside checks, we are told. In other words, about 38% of vehicles inspected by the DMT randomly in one location in the central hills were found to be unroadworthy. This can be considered a microcosm of the overall situation in the country.

Action taken by the DMT to identify unroadworthy vehicles as part of ongoing efforts to make roads safe is commendable, albeit belated. Last month’s tragedy where an SLTB bus carrying 75 passengers went down a precipice, killing 21 of them, near Ramboda, may have jolted the DMT and the police into action. The vehicle inspection programme should be expanded to cover the entire country. If it is not feasible to do so due to resource constraints, etc., it should be conducted in at least in the areas where road accidents are frequent. The police have identified quite a few blackspots across the country.

Meanwhile, the DIG in charge of Traffic Control and Road Safety Indika Hapugoda has revealed that 1,133 fatal road accidents have claimed about 2,000 lives so far this year, according to media reports. This must have sent a chill down everyone’s spine. Assuming that the media reports quoting DIG Hapugoda are accurate, the number of lives lost in road accidents during the first six months of the current year is only slightly lower than that in the whole of last year. It has been reported that about 2,141 road accidents left about 2,243 individuals dead in 2024. The number of road fatalities average seven a day, and it is likely to be much higher this year.

Director of the Colombo National Hospital Orthopedic Services Department, Dr. Indika Jagoda, has rightly called road accident fatalities a ‘silent epidemic’, which has not received the same public attention as dengue and other such diseases. Road accidents exert a severe strain on the state-run hospitals, and their economic and social costs are enormous. As we pointed out in a previous editorial comment, a comprehensive World Bank report, Delivering Road Safety in Sri Lanka; Leadership Priorities and Initiatives to 2030, reveals that ‘the high road crash fatality and injury rates on Sri Lanka’s roads undermine the economic growth and progress made over the past decade on reducing poverty and boosting prosperity’. The report says the annual crash deaths per capita in Sri Lanka are twice the average rate in high-income countries and five times that of the best performing countries in the world! Sri Lanka reportedly has the worst road fatality rate among its immediate neighbours in the South Asia region.

Unroadworthy vehicles must be identified and taken off roads, and punitive action taken against their owners for endangering the lives of all road users. However, they are only one of the causative factors. Road safety experts have identified as the common causes of crashes on expressways and other roads in Sri Lanka the following, among others: speeding, distractions, recklessness, fatigue, driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, inclement weather conditions, inadequate road conditions, tailgating, improper lane changes, inexperience of drivers, overtaking dangerously, poor visibility, poor signage or lack of road markings and impatience or time pressure. One of the aforesaid factors or a combination of two or more of them could lead to fatal accidents on any road. So, the success of any strategy to prevent road mishaps hinges on addressing these causative factors as well.

Friday 20th June, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) paid a glowing tribute to the outgoing Secretary to the Finance Ministry, Mahinda Siriwardena, on Wednesday. He ensured that Siriwardena would end his crucial innings in the Treasury on a high note, and commended the latter for having helped steer the country’s battered economy to safety. Siriwardena praised President Dissanayake for having provided political leadership for the ongoing economic recovery efforts.

The felicitation of Siriwardena was replete with irony, which may not have been lost on keen political observers. The highest accolades for his Treasury stint, which could be likened to a high-wire act performed without a safety net, came from the leader of the very political party that bayed for his blood, as it were, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency.

The JVP would tear Siriwardena to shreds for drastic economic recovery measures that sent the public reeling. It also threatened to throw him behind bars under an NPP government. Thankfully, Siriwardena did not crack under political pressure and hostile propaganda. Following last year’s regime change, the sobering reality had a mellowing effect on the JVP/NPP, which had to come to terms with it. President Dissanayake deserves praise for having retained several key state officials who had played a pivotal role in helping the country navigate its worst-ever economic crisis during the previous dispensation. Thus, he ensured an uninterrupted continuation of the country’s economic recovery programme backed by the IMF.

Siriwardena, or any other efficient state official, for that matter, would not have succeeded if not for unwavering political leadership President Ranil Wickremesinghe provided for the country’s economic recovery efforts. To give credit where it is due, Wickremesinghe had the courage to make a host of unpopular decisions to save the economy; he had to increase taxes and tariffs while curtailing state expenditure amidst protests. It is doubtful whether any other leader would have dared grasp the nettle the way he did on the economic front.

But for those stringent measures, it would not have been possible to break the back of the economic crisis, and the IMF programme would have collapsed, plunging the country into chaos or even anarchy. President Wickremesinghe would have been able to win last year’s presidential election if not for the many wrongs he committed on the political front. He unflinchingly shielded crooks and succumbed to the arrogance of power. He did not heed democratic dissent and went so far as to make an election disappear in 2023.

He claimed that he had to prioritise the basic needs of the public over elections, and therefore funds could not be allocated for the local government polls, which were to be held in that year. Siriwardena, who carried out President Wickremesinghe’s controversial order to that effect, refusing to allocate funds for elections, was lucky that the Supreme Court dismissed two contempt of court cases against him. They were widely thought to be touch-and-go cases. Interestingly, one of the two contempt of court applications was filed by President Dissanayake’s trusted lieutenant, Vijitha Herath, and the other by the SJB. Obviously, Herath did so with Dissanayake’s blessings.

Perhaps, being the Treasury chief in Sri Lanka is one of the toughest jobs in the world, like that of the Columbia River Bar Pilots. Whoever holds that position incurs the wrath of ruling party MPs with an enormous appetite for state funds so much so that one of the Treasury Chiefs came to be dubbed an economic hitman. That job has become doubly difficult during the current economic crisis. Siriwardena must have spent many sleepless nights. His high-stress job may have accelerated his biological age, causing it to overcome his chronological age.

It is fervently hoped that in filling the vacancy created by Siriwardena’s exit, in the Treasury, President Dissanayake will not repeat the mistake he made by trying to appoint someone without adequate experience and competence as the Auditor General at the expense of a highly capable senior official of integrity in the Auditor General’s Department. He must ensure that Siriwardena’s successor will be an experienced, competent official of integrity.