The Island Editorial

Sharks, fry and red herrings

07 October 2016

 

Those who are responsible for large scale corrupt deals have not been probed, Government Spokesman and Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne has, feigning surprise, lamented at a media briefing on Wednesday. He has sought to kill not just two but three birds with one stone. He pretends that the government does not interfere in the state investigative outfits; he tries to cover up the government’s failure to substantiate its pre-election allegations against its opponents. Moreover, Minister Senaratne is craftily trying to shift the blame for the present administration’s failure to recover billions of dollars which, it said, had been stashed away in offshore accounts, to the investigators.

Meanwhile, the controversial Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) has questioned former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal. He is one of those blamed for spending a colossal amount of public funds on the Rajapaksa government’s abortive bid to hold Commonwealth Games 2018 in Sri Lanka. The incumbent government, which according to Deputy Minister of Finance Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene finds it difficult even to pay state sector salaries, is lucky that the Rajapaksas failed in their endeavour. Else, the present-day rulers would have been faced with the gargantuan task of raising funds for the Commonwealth Games and the economy would have gone into a tailspin or even collapsed.

Nobody is above the law and action must be taken against anyone allegedly responsible for wasting public funds. Let Cabraal defend himself and clear his name. But, the manner in which the government is manipulating the FCID and the CID has left a bad taste in many a mouth.

What the Gestapo style special police units and the CID are doing by way of investigations may be called ‘show grilling’ in that the persons to be interrogated are named by the ruling politicians and their cronies well in advance and the government propagandists go into overdrive to humiliate them. These propaganda hit men presume the suspects guilty until they are proven innocent!

Equality before the law is one of the principles underpinning the concept of good governance which the present dispensation is marketing for political purposes. But, government members and their henchmen remain above the law to all intents and purposes. While former Central Bank Governor Cabraal is facing an investigation his successor Arjuna Mahendran, who has been allegedly involved in several mega bond scams, is without any such problem. He continues to go places as a government advisor, attending as he does crucial meetings on matters related to finance. Why have the FCID and the CID, which is even pursuing those keeping elephants without permits, steered clear of Mahendran though the questionable bond issues have cost the state coffers billions of rupees? Shame on those government MPs who are striving to open an escape route for him in the form of a dissenting COPE report! It looks as if we had to wait till the next change of government to have the bond scams under the present dispensation probed.

The self-appointed good governance activists claimed before the last two elections that all members of the Rajapaksa government were crooks responsible for plundering public funds and putting through various crooked deals. Most people bought into that claim and voted for the then Opposition.

But, what action has the so-called yahapalana government taken against the crooks of the Rajapaksa regime who have sided with it and are holding ministerial posts? Is it that any fraudster becomes a paragon of virtue the moment he or she closes ranks with the government?

The message the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration has sent out to its opponents is loud and clear: "If you want the FCID, CID etc off your back join us!"