Corruption in Sri Lanka is worse today than ever before. This fact is admitted by everyone, is seen to be more and more evident in the press, and even the government does not deny it.
All governments in recent times have come to power in the country promising to eradicate this great evil and so has the present regime of President Mahinda Rajapakse. However, this regime has been accused of even worse forms of corruption than its predecessors.
At no time has there been such absolute impunity regarding corruption. There are almost daily exposures of corruption in the press. For example, the report of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) and the reports and statements of the former Auditor General on this score is well known. The scandal relating to the worst ever alleged fraud in the Inland Revenue Department is equally well published. Almost every day there are public revelations of unbound corruption involving the highest and the lowest.
From the point of view of the economy the greatest threat to development is this endemic corruption. It is simply impossible for any rational development to take place in any area of the economy under these circumstances. Corruption makes all planning into economic projects meaningless. Secret deals defeats all attempts for the proper process of evolving a plan for development. However, this number one enemy of economic development is ignored by the government.
The impact of corruption, as to be expected, is severely felt within the country’s law enforcement mechanism: the Sri Lankan police service, it does not even function to a basically credible level. In fact it is dysfunctional to an extent where investigations into any serious crime have become impossible. The commonly held suspicion often is that the police force itself is implicit in serious crimes in all areas of life in the country.
This dysfunctionalism of the police has placed Sri Lanka among the countries that face an exceptional collapse of the rule of law. The result of this is that it is one of the most insecure of places. The insecurity and endemic corruption are very much linked.
Meanwhile the public despondency and unrest regarding corruption is at its highest ever. Recently a coalition against corruption held a public meeting and warned that the very survival of the nation is now threatened by corruption. The spokesman stated that Sri Lanka cannot any longer be referred to as a ‘nation’ due to the way in which the country is being robbed. And this expression of unhappiness is widespread in the government bureaucracy itself. At present such frustration is expressed throughout the country through angry condemnation of the alleged corruption within the government.
However, the government tries to use the anti terrorism drive to stop all criticism against itself. When officers at the highest levels of the government are criticized about corruption the administration does not take any steps to have them investigated. Thus, a climate of impunity prevails and no one needs fear any adverse consequences due to corruption. To maintain such a climate it is also necessary to maintain a sense of terror at all levels. Constant arrests are reported daily, although it is very rarely that such arrests end up in criminal charges or prosecutions. The recent incident about a suspect held in the notorious 4th floor of the Criminal Investigation Department, allegedly hanging himself with a bed sheet is just a symbolic expression of the type of terror that is prevailing now. The arrest of executives and reporters from some newspapers is also a demonstration of the manner in which society is terrorized in order to undermine the public protests against this endemic corruption in the government.
Raising the issue of corruption so that it is regarded as the most urgent item on the agenda for economic progress and stability remains a precondition in altering the fear psychosis that bedevils Sri Lanka today. As long as anti terrorism is used as the means to avoid the debate on the needed reforms to deal with corruption nothing can be expected except the further degeneration of the situation. In such a situation of intense and widespread corruption no solution to the internal conflict can be found. All political regimes that are threatened by the peoples’ anger arising out of failed governance use such methods of terrorizing people as is happening in Sri Lanka today.
The challenge to all democratically minded people is to find ways to get the debate on corruption to the forefront.
