Friday 4th October, 2024

Much is being spoken these days about the need to eliminate corruption, which has eaten into the vitals of Sri Lankan society. However, clean governance has been reduced to a mere political slogan in this country, and the corrupt continue to go places. While Sri Lanka is paying lip service to the task of ridding itself of corruption, former Singapore Minister S. Iswaran has been sentenced to one year in jail for receiving gifts worth USD 300,000 and obstructing justice while in office.

Charges against Iswaran included accepting expensive gifts such as tickets to English Premier League football matches, the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix, London musicals and a private jet ride. If Sri Lankan politicians were to be prosecuted for such offences, most of them would be behind bars. The new government of Sri Lanka has taken moral high ground and is making a public display of what it calls its commitment to eliminating bribery and corruption. It has received praise from foreign diplomats for its anti-corruption drive, but its leaders are among the politicians who have received undeclared funds.

Iswaran, who held several key Cabinet portfolios, such as transport, communications and trade, had to resign as a minister last year, when his transgressions came to light. He initially protested his innocence, saying that he would fight to clear his name, but subsequently he pleaded guilty to five charges.

The Singapore court rejected Iswaran’s plea for leniency. Presiding Judge Vincent Hoong is reported to have said: “Trust and confidence in public institutions are the bedrock of effective governance, which could all too easily be undermined by the appearance that an individual public servant has fallen below the standards of integrity and accountability.” The classification of a minister as a public servant is of interest. Sri Lanka’s new government should seriously consider having Judge Hoong’s obiter dictum prominently displayed at all state institutions, here.

What basically made Singapore’s quantum leap from the ‘Third World’ to the ‘First World’ possible was its successful war on bribery and corruption under the unwavering leadership of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), who also restored the rule of law. Clean governance has enabled the city state to retain its No 2 spot on the World Bank rankings for ease of doing business.

In a previous editorial comment on the arrest of Iswaran, we pointed out what LKY had said about ministers and officials in this part of the world. In his widely read book, From Third World to First, he has said: “The higher they are, the bigger their homes and more numerous their wives, concubines, or mistresses, all bedecked in jewelry appropriate to the power and position of their men. Singaporeans who do business in these countries have to take care not to bring home such practices.” When one sees Sri Lankan politicians and bureaucrats enriching themselves and living the life of Riley with impunity, one remembers LKY’s memorable words.

All Singaporean politicians who did not heed LKY’s aforesaid warning were severely dealt with. The fate that befell Teh Cheang Wan, the Minister for National Development, is a case in point. When the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau launched a probe into an allegation of bribery against him in the mid-1980s, he sought to meet LKY, who refused to see him until the investigation was over.

Wan took his life, and his suicide note said, inter alia, “As an honourable oriental gentleman I feel it is only right that I should pay the highest penalty for my mistake.” If the Sri Lankan ministers had received the same treatment as Wan from their leaders, most of them would have been pushing up the daisies by now, and the vital sectors such as health, education, finance, agriculture and trade and commerce would have been free from corruption, and, above all, fake and substandard drugs would not have snuffed out so many lives in the state-run hospitals.

Now that Singapore has set an example to other countries by throwing Iswaran behind bars, will it extradite one of its citizens, Arjuna Mahendran, to Sri Lanka to stand trial for his involvement in the Treasury bond scams carried out on his watch as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka? Singapore should help other nations fight corruption, shouldn’t it?

Minister of Public Security Vijitha Herath has said the new government will do everything in its power to have Mahendran extradited. Let him be urged to ensure that the Attorney General’s Department makes a formal request to the government of Singapore to that effect, again.

Wednesday 2nd October, 2024

The monthly petroleum price revision has been effected, and the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene have been reduced. The price of a litre of 92 Octane petrol has been reduced by Rs. 21 to Rs. 311. The prices of ‘auto’ diesel and ‘super’ diesel have been decreased by Rs. 24 and Rs. 33 per litre to Rs. 283 and 319, respectively. The price of a litre of kerosene has been reduced by Rs. 19 to Rs. 183. The price of 95 Octane petrol remains unchanged. These price reductions may be larger than those implemented by the Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe government, but they fall far short of what the NPP promised before the recently concluded presidential election. The NPP leaders including the then presidential candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, tore into the Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe government for keeping the petroleum prices extremely high by imposing taxes amounting to more than Rs. 150 on petrol and diesel per litre. No sooner had Dissanayake won the presidency than he came under pressure from his political opponents to reduce petroleum prices by at least Rs. 150 per litre.

Thankfully, the NPP has chosen to act wisely. It has not made the same mistakes as the Yahapalana government and the SLPP administration; the regime changes in 2015 and 2019 led to huge decreases in fuel prices, which took their toll on state revenue.

If the NPP government had slashed the fuel prices in keeping with its pre-election rhetoric, its action would have stood in the way of the efforts being made to raise state revenue as part of the country’s economic recovery programme. Reflected in the latest fuel price revision is the fact that the sobering economic reality has already dawned on President Dissanayake and his Cabinet. This is something positive.

The NPP leaders have not sought to translate their campaign rhetoric into action. They have chosen to tread cautiously although the Opposition is raking them over the coals for not making good on their election promises. Cabinet Spokesman Vijitha Herath told the media yesterday that the new government had to reduce fuel prices in a sustainable manner, and more relief could be given to the people as the economy improved.

It is heartening that the NPP leaders have not pandered to their party’s dyed-in-the-wool members who are calling for the ouster of some efficient state officials in key positions, and demanding populist measures to rally more popular support. They also seem to have opted to strike a fine balance between the ongoing economic recovery programme and the provision of economic relief. That is the way to set about the task of managing the economy. They have to cross the river by feeling the stones, as legendary Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously said.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has, in view of the upcoming general election, suspended the implementation of the fertiliser and fuel subsidies President Dissanayake ordered the Finance Ministry to grant farmers and fishers, respectively. Subsidies help lower the cost of production, if properly implemented, and there is no gainsaying that the farming community, as well as others, deserve relief, but there is a pressing need to rationalise all subsidy schemes and ensure that the intended benefits thereof accrue to the public.

Private bus operators have decided to share the benefits of the fuel price reductions with the public; they have agreed to a downward bus fare revision. But trishaw operators have refused to do so; they are demanding a bigger petrol price reduction! Ironically, most of them threw their weight behind the NPP in the presidential contest, displaying posters of Dissanayake on their vehicles. They are now refusing to help the NPP government ease the people’s economic burden. So much for their much-advertised progressive outlook and their campaign for social justice.

What the reaction of the trishaw operators signifies is that most of those who made the NPP’s ascension to power possible may not fully cooperate with the new administration to usher in the change they passionately clamoured for if they feel that their interests are threatened. They want others to bring about that change while they are busy serving self-interest.

Tuesday 1st October, 2024

The NPP government has stripped the members of the last Parliament of police protection, and asked the latter to return the firearms issued by the State. The ex-NPP MPs do not have to worry about their security; one of them has been elected President and the other two are Cabinet Ministers. The government has also decided to consider scaling down security provided to former Presidents, according to media reports.

It does not make any sense to assign police personnel to protect former MPs who are not facing any threats, but the government had better tread cautiously in effecting changes to special security arrangements in place to protect the former Presidents, especially those who provided political leadership for the country’s war against the LTTE. First of all, the new administration must learn from history, order a proper threat assessment and take cognisance of risks and dangers in the process of reducing VIP security.

Sri Lanka has been no stranger to political assassinations and terrorism. There have also been other instances of savage violence, which led to political upheavals. The assassination of Lalith Athulathmudali in 1993 is a case in point. He was deprived of security after being expelled from the Premadasa government, which chose to settle political scores with him, despite serious threats to his life, and his death at the hands of a gunman during a political rally triggered a tsunami of civil unrest. The government leaders of the day including President Ranasinghe Premadasa incurred the wrath of the public and ruined the UNP’s electoral prospects.

Sri Lanka is one of the countries caught in geopolitical vortices with external forces advancing sinister geostrategic agendas at their expense, and it must therefore not leave the security of its leaders to chance; the foreign powers seeking to retain global dominance are notorious for doing everything in their power to destabilise the nations that refuse to do their bidding.

It may be recalled that ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has gone on record as saying that she would still have been in power if she had allowed the US to gain control over St. Martin Island. It has also been alleged that there was a foreign hand in the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022. In March 2024, the then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane informed Parliament that some foreign envoys had pressured him to take over the presidency in violation of the Constitution after Gotabaya had fled the country in 2022.

The SDIG in charge of the CID and the Director of the CID during the Yahapalana government––Ravi Seneviratne and Shanie Abeysekera, respectively–– are among those who said in their testimonies before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry which probed the Easter Sunday attacks that there had been a foreign involvement in the carnage. Seneviratne is currently the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and Abeysekera is also backing the NPP government to the hilt. One may recall that the debilitation of the Sri Lankan economy commenced with the Easter Sunday attacks, which crippled tourism, in 2019. The bombers deliberately targeted hotels and tourists. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, who was the Minister of Justice in the Yahapalana government has, in a television interview, attributed the Easter Sunday attacks to the hostile reaction of some foreign powers to handover of the Hambantota Port to China. The leaders of the new dispensation should realise the gravity of the situation and act cautiously in respect of security issues.

The fact that there have been no terror attacks and political assassinations for the past several years is no reason why the defence authorities should consider the country safe enough for the former Presidents to move about without special security.

The government cannot be faulted for exploring ways and means of curtailing expenditure the state incurs to maintain the former Presidents. Whether the ex-Presidents should be given houses and provided with other facilities at the expense of the public is debatable. None of them are without their own residences. They did not live in rented houses before their ascension to the presidency. Legal action may be taken against them for their alleged transgressions while in power. But their protection must not be compromised.