NATO summit in Colombo
10 December 2016
A NATO (No Action Talk Only) summit on corruption was held in
Colombo yesterday. Fiery speeches and solemn pledges were made by
politicians, who vowed to rid the country of bribery and corruption.
Been there, done that! The road to hell is said to be paved with good
intentions!
Leaders of the incumbent government have talked
the talk for long enough and now it is time for them to walk the walk,
but they are talking the talk once again. Many a pair of shoes is said
to be worn out between saying and doing. The yahapalana regime, which
undertook to cleanse politics, kicked off with a grand bank robbery as
it were; some lackeys of the ruling politicians made off with treasury
bonds to the tune of several billions of rupees. The culprits have not
only gone scot free but also are seen in the exalted company of some
government leaders who promised to battle corruption with might and
main yesterday.
Amateurs wear full-face helmets and carry
guns when they stage wild west style bank heists; politically connected
professional robbers don three-piece suits and flash thousand watt
smiles while removing their booty through the front door of the bank of
banks with no questions asked, so to speak.
Several mega
rackets have already caused irreparable damage to the image of the
yahapalana regime during the last two years. The JVP told Parliament on
Thursday that the Paddy Marketing Board had sold its buffer paddy
stocks to a single miller and the country was likely to face a scarcity
of rice during the festive season.
A multi-billion-rupee
coal racket, which, the apex court said, had shocked its conscience,
has not been probed properly and the racketeers have got away with it.
Hundreds of undervalued luxury vehicles, taken into custody by the
Customs, have been released on orders from some government grandees and
the state coffers have lost billions of rupees as a result. But, nobody
has been brought to justice. It is only wishful thinking that the
crooks loyal to the present dispensation will ever be hauled up before
courts for their sordid operations. They are too big to be caught!
The
government proposed in Parliament a few moons ago that a cap would be
slapped on campaign expenditure as funds politicians received went
unaccounted for. That proposal struck a responsive chord with all
right-thinking people. Will President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe set an example to others by revealing how
much they spent on their election campaigns last year and where the
funds came from? Charity begins at home. If they do so, others
including former President Mahinda Rajapaksa will be compelled to
follow suit.
If the government leaders think they can dupe
the discerning public into believing that they are paragons of virtue
by holding anti-graft summits, they are mistaken. It may be recalled
that David Cameron, reeling from a Panama Papers revelation, while he
was the British Prime Minister, held an anti-corruption summit in
London to shore up his crumbling image, but in vain.
It is
now time for action against corruption. The Commission to Investigate
Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) should put an end to
expensive anti-corruption circuses and investigate the allegations
against powerful politicians and their henchmen. The Opposition says
complaints against government politicians are not investigated by the
CIABOC. Will it tell the public whether any government politicians have
refused to answer its summons?
Public awareness of bribery
and corruption is already at a very satisfactory level and the CIABOC
and the Law and Order Ministry should not spend public funds to hold
summits etc. at star class hotels while people are starving and
children are dying without treatment.
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