Ban Ki-moon, SLFP & corruption
04 September 2016
President Maithripala Sirisena’s meeting on Friday with media
people including editors and publishers as well as the heads of the
electronic media revealed an aspect of his political sagacity as well
as the willingness to candidly respond to the questions that were
thrown at him. It is hard to fault his logic that had Mahinda Rajapaksa
won the third term he had sought and Prabakharan survived the military
defeat of the LTTE and found refuge abroad, it would have been
difficult to come to grips with post-war issues that are now being
resolved, albeit slowly. There is no doubt that there are extremists
across the spectrum delighting in throwing obstacles in the way of the
reasonable settlement of the various issues that abound. This is true of
both the Sinhala and Tamil sides and it is inevitable that in a
democracy such as ours, with those in office striving to hold on to
power and the opposition seeking to dislodge them that such contests
will abound. Churchill certainly said a mouthful when he declared that
"democracy is the worst form of government - except for the others."
UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s short visit went off without any
hiccups. This was predictable as the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe
government has mended most of the foreign relations fences that its
predecessor had broken. The Western nations are no longer as
antagonistic to Sri Lanka as they once were; indeed they are largely
supportive and that must necessarily reflect in the UN’s general
attitude towards Sri Lanka. At his press conference last week, the
president offered the opinion that the former president called the 2015
election two years before it was due as he feared the repercussions of
the burgeoning debt crisis and the looming human rights issue at UNHRC
further down the road in his second term. He had hoped that with an
unprecedented third term under his belt, he would be better able to
cope with these. In the event he lost the election and the new regime
has inherited those problems. It is certainly doing much better on the
human rights front than its predecessor, its task made easier by
reduced external pressure, though there does not appear to be any
progress in reducing the national debt.
President Sirisena
remarked on Ban’s smiling countenance throughout his visit and also
revealed that he and his visitor had a short one-on-one session after
the official talks. Ban had not made any demands or imposed any
timeframes for the achievement of desired objectives. He had seen Sri
Lanka he had visited several times as a representative of the Seoul
government before he assumed high UN office as a ‘green’ country with a
beautiful coastline and had remarked that his own country did not have
much political agitation once it had achieved its developed status. He
did not see why this should not hold true for Sri Lanka as well. This
is a viewpoint that most would agree with. Although we have now
attained middle income status in the world order, with the resultant
disadvantage of not qualifying for concessional multilateral
assistance, there are pockets of extreme poverty in many parts of the
country including the capital city. It is to be hoped that the
president’s announcement that top priority would be given in 2017 to
banishing poverty and its implementation will succeed. There have been
many poverty alleviation schemes in the past – Janasaviya, Samurdhi,
Divineguma etc. but how well they had been targeted is an open
question. Unfortunately many really needy people do not benefit while
those who do not qualify draw the benefits.
The president
also appeared confident that he would be able to bring the SLFP’s 65th
anniversary celebrations at Kurunegala today to a successful
conclusion. The popular perception is that former President Mahinda
Rajapaksa commands more support in the SLFP than President Sirisena who
has used his presidential powers to persuade many senior SLFPers to
abandon Rajapaksa and come under his wing. He had offices to offer
those who would have otherwise been in the wilderness and even National
List places in Parliament to those who were defeated at the last
election. In its May report, the Public Representations Committee on
Constitutional Reforms said that those who presented their views before
the committee were extremely critical of the appointment of candidates
who had not been elected to parliament being appointed to the
legislature through the National List. But no outright recommendation
to abolish the list had been made although some members had felt it was
not necessary with others of the view that the number of such
appointments be reduced and no candidates on any other list be
accommodated in the National List.
The indictment of
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, three former navy commanders and Avant Garde
bosses have raised hopes that more high profile corruption cases will
be soon brought before the courts. There has been public
dissatisfaction about the slowness of the process and there was pressure
on investigators to demonstrate some big ‘catches’. Indictments can be
served and accused hauled before the courts but question remains of
whether evidence that would meet the test of exacting judicial
standards is available. Unfortunately there is insufficient public
perception that corruption eventually costs the taxpayer. A supplier
who pays a bribe to get a contract will always quote a price sufficient
to recover his ‘investment.’ This will eventually fall on the taxpayer
who has to pick up the tab.
Given Sri Lanka’s geographical
location, the military’s holding of firepower necessitated by the war
and trained retired and serving personnel made the provision of sea
marshal services to international shipping a natural business to enter
in the context of mounting piracy. The navy as well as some other
private companies did the job first and made some modest profits before
Avant Garde was given a monopoly in partnership with a state-owned
company. It did incredibly well making super profits. Whether the navy
could not have done that job by itself is something to think about.
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