Tuesday 20th January, 2026

The National Audit Office (NAO) has remained headless since last month. It was under an Acting Auditor General for about nine months from April 2025. The longstanding vacancy at the highest level of the supreme audit institution in the country and deplorable attempts being made to appoint a crony of the ruling party as Auditor General (AG) will severely erode the confidence of investors and donors. The post-Ditwah rebuilding programme requires donor assistance, which is not likely to be forthcoming if the NAO remains without a head. This situation would not have come about if President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had nominated a senior official in the NAO for the post of AG. Instead, he nominated less qualified outsiders and the Constitutional Council (CC) rightly refused to approve those nominations.

The Opposition has argued that the government is desperate to appoint one of its loyalists as AG due to the sheer number of questionable deals on its watch, some of the high-profile ones being the green-channelling of 323 red-flagged freight containers in January 2025, the coal scandal, the Ondansetron or pharmaceutical procurement scam, questionable rice imports and controversial pickup truck deal. They have the potential to bring down what has been touted as the central pillar of the NPP government—the much-advertised anti-corruption campaign

At the time of going to press, pressure was mounting on the government to reveal a foreign laboratory report on substandard coal stocks procured for power generation. The Energy Ministry has refused to accept the results of tests conducted by a state-owned laboratory, which found the coal stocks substandard. Coal samples were then sent to a laboratory in India for testing, and the Frontline Socialist Party has said the test results have been submitted to the government, but it is keeping them under wraps as part of a grand cover-up.

SJB MP Dr. Harsha de Silva, who has evinced a genuine interest in resolving the NAO issue, has gone on record as saying that President Dissanayake sought his assistance to put the matter to rest, but the Speaker prevented him from communicating with the CC members. It was a case of the President proposing and the Speaker disposing, as we said in a recent headline.

The current CC has lived up to the expectations of the campaigners for good governance mainly thanks to its intrepid civil society members, who have become an effective counter-balance. The government is allegedly biding time until the reconstitution of the CC and the exit of the civil society members who have frustrated its efforts to appoint one of its cronies as AG. Speculation is rife that the JVP/NPP will do everything in its power to make the CC a mere rubber stamp for the President.

The AG must be free from executive control to ensure unbiased scrutiny of government accounts. He or she is required to perform multiple tasks impartially to strengthen good governance, some of them being ensuring financial accuracy, preventing misuse, evaluating performance, reporting to Parliament, reinforcing accountability, and supporting governance reforms. If the President succeeds in parachuting an outsider with NPP links into the post of AG, over the eligible candidates in the NAO, that person will naturally be beholden to the government, compromising the integrity of the vital institution. Such an appointment, tainted with politics, will run counter to the letter and spirit of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which was introduced to reinforce independent institutions, restore mechanisms for transparent appointments, and uphold good governance.

The Police Department has become a malleable tool for the ruling party. The Executive’s pressure tactics have compromised the autonomous decision-making powers of the Attorney General to a considerable extent. Only the judiciary is still held in high esteem as most of its decisions have so far embodied certain core hallmarks that uphold fairness, legitimacy and public trust. One can only hope that it will continue to safeguard its independence vis-à-vis the hostility of meddlesome politicians. It may be recalled that the previous government sought to summon some Supreme Court (SC) judges before the parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Privileges over an interim order that cleared obstacles to conducting elections. The order was given by a three-member SC bench, comprising Justice Preethi Padman Surasena, (who became Chief Justice), Justice Janak de Silva and Justice Priyantha Fernando, allowing the consideration of a fundamental rights petition filed by the SJB. Fortunately, sanity prevailed and the SLPP-UNP administration walked back its decision.

The laudable objectives that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was expected to help achieve remain unattainable. The NPP Manifesto, A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, pledges to “Improve public finance efficiency, transparency, governance and accountability, and eliminate unnecessary public expenditure” (p. 57). It also promises “merit-based appointments and promotions” (p. 110). How can a government ensure public finance efficiency, etc., without an AG independent of the Executive and free from any conflict of interest or quid pro quo? It is imperative that the most suitable official in the NAO be appointed as Auditor General urgently.

Monday 19th January, 2026

The police did not breathalyse NPP MP Asoka Ranwala following a serious road accident he caused last month and went out of their way to ensure that he would not undergo a blood alcohol test until more than 12 hours had elapsed. But on Friday they swiftly administered a breath test on a driver who happened to ram his vehicle into a car driven by MP Ranwala’s wife on the Kelaniya-Biyagama road, and lost no time in declaring that he was drunk. Such is the selective efficiency of the police. On the same night, the police made a public display of their servility to the NPP government in Tambuttegama, where they removed the flags put up by the SLPP in view of a political event.

Addressing a group of SLPP supporters on Saturday, MP Namal Rajapaksa vowed to stand up to what he described as state terror and defend democracy. If only he had done so while his family was in power!

Last September, the police openly backed a group of JVP activists who stormed an office of the Frontline Socialist Party in Yakkala. They went to the extent of providing security to the place which was forcibly occupied by the JVP cadres. Last Friday, a senior police officer in uniform was seen on television answering a call from someone, returning to the scene and barking orders with renewed vigour. That reminded us of IGP Pujith Jayasundera’s infamous telephone call at a public rally in Ratnapura in 2016; he was captured on camera answering a call from someone he reverentially addressed as sir, and informing the latter that he had instructed the police not to arrest a certain Nilame.

It is only wishful thinking that the rule of law can be restored when the police are made to act like the storm troopers of the ruling party. The deterioration of the Police Department is not of recent origin; it is a result of decades of politicisation under successive governments led by the SLFP, the UNP and their allies. The JVP/NPP also keeps the police under its thumb.

The Rajapaksas and their hangers-on would have the public believe that they are on a crusade to protect democracy. They seem to have a very low opinion of people’s intelligence and memory. Otherwise, they would not have sought to hoodwink the public by playing the victim card and lamenting the decline of the police and other vital state institutions due to politicisation. While in power, they unflinchingly resorted to violence to further their political interests and had the police on a string. They brought the Attorney General’s Department directly under the President and ordered the police not only to harass their political opponents but also to allow their goons to unleash violence to disrupt Opposition protests. When the media questioned the Police Spokesman why club-wielding government thugs were allowed to operate alongside the riot police, he denied the charge, claiming that they were ordinary citizens. When it was pointed out that they had been armed with clubs, he had the chutzpah to claim that they may have been carrying ‘sticks’ to ward off street dogs. In 2014, Hambantota Mayor Eraj Fernando, a staunch Rajapaksa loyalist, armed with a pistol, menacingly pursued a group of UNP-MPs who were visiting the Hambantota Port. The government spokespersons of the day unashamedly insisted that Fernando had been carrying a toy pistol. Besides, that regime used the police and military intelligence as the Oprichniki of Ivan the Terrible. Namal should be happy that the police only pulled down the SLPP’s flags in Thambuttegama on Friday, and there were no incidents of violence.

However, it is undeniable that the police acted in a despicable manner in Thambuttegama on Friday. It was obvious that they did so at the behest of some JVP/NPP politicians who did not want the SLPP to put on a show of strength in the hometown of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and some ministers. The NPP government, which came to power promising a radical departure from the past political culture is emulating its predecessors and making the police do dirty political work for it.

In Sri Lanka, supermajorities are cursed. When power goes to their heads, politicians take leave of their senses and lay bare their true faces. There is hardly anything that they do not do to retain their hold on power. But it is counterproductive to suppress political dissent, and the governments that do so dig their own political graves; when they lose power, they find that the boot is on the other foot, with the police grovelling before the new rulers.

Unless the JVP/NPP fulfils its promise to replace the current rotten political culture with a new one, it may have the police pulling down its own flags in Thambuttegama and elsewhere under another government, perhaps, sooner than expected.

We have witnessed many false dawns, with self-proclaimed messiahs winning elections purportedly to put the country right and subsequently reneging on their solemn pledges in keeping with the Machiavellian maxim on promises.

One of the key campaign promises of the ruling JVP-led NPP was to restore the rule of law, which had been undermined by successive governments. The public reposed their trust in the NPP, expecting it to honour its promise and straighten up the legal system. But its pledge has gone unfulfilled, and government politicians and their supporters remain above the law, which is enforced strictly only when transgressors happen to be Opposition politicians and their cronies. The police, who even use force against ordinary people and the political rivals of the government over minor transgressions, unashamedly baulk at arresting the NPP politicians who commit serious offences.

No sooner had four Buddhist monks and five others been remanded, on Thursday, for allegedly violating coast conservation laws by putting up a shrine in Trincomalee than it was reported that the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) had sent a strongly worded letter to the Chairman of the Galgamuwa Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) over illegal soil excavation in some forest reserves in the PS area. The GSMB’s letter is a damning indictment of the NPP. It has revealed that a group of ruling party politicians and their supporters obstructed a team of GSMB officials during a raid on an illegal soil excavation site and forcibly secured the release of seven tractors and their drivers taken into custody. The police, who were present on the scene, just looked on. The GSMB has reminded the PS Chairman that its officers are legally empowered to conduct raids in any part of the country to prevent illegal activities.

How would the police have responded if a group of Opposition politicians and their backers had obstructed the GSMB personnel and the police during a raid? They would have been arrested immediately and hauled up before court, and perhaps the police would have held a special media briefing to announce the arrests.

No action has been taken against those who carried out illegal soil excavation in Galgamuwa and obstructed the GSMB officers and the police. One may recall that the police lost no time in arresting Chairman of the Matugama PS Kasun Munasinghe (SJB) recently over a mere allegation that he had obstructed the PS Secretary. There is irrefutable evidence that the NPP politicians and their supporters obstructed the GSMB officers and the police in Galgamuwa. Has the current government adopted the credo of the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm and decreed that all politicians are equal but the NPP politicians are more equal than others? Breathalyzers mysteriously disappear from police stations when an NPP MP causes a road accident allegedly under the influence of alcohol, and the CID resorts to dilatory tactics, such as seeking the Attorney General’s opinion unnecessarily, when they are required to arrest government politicians charged with forgery. Police officers who raid cannabis plantations that allegedly belong to NPP politicians or their relatives are arrested and transferred or suspended from service.

Ven. Balangoda Kassapa Thera, one of the four Buddhist monks remanded on Wednesday, reportedly launched a fast on Thursday. Those who are supportive of the shrine project in Trincomalee have demanded to know why the police and the Department of Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management have not removed the unauthorised business places, etc., in the coastal buffer zones in Trincomalee and elsewhere.

The police and the Coast Conservation officials owe an explanation. They have steered clear of many unauthorised structures in Trincomalee and other parts of the country. The western coastal buffer zone is dotted with illegal constructions including restaurants and hotels. Political interference and corruption have prevented their demolition. The NPP government has failed to be different from its predecessors which earned notoriety for the selective enforcement of the law.