A seminar organized on the Bribery by Transparency International (Sri Lanka branch) was held recently. Among those who addressed and participated in the seminar were S Ananda Coomaraswamy, Chairman, Commission of Inquiry into Bribery or Corruption, Dr Kingsley Wickramasuriya, member of the Commission, and Piyasena Ranasinghe, the Director General.
The Chairman of the Commission made a brief and emotional speech to the seminar. Any person listening would have thought that the Commission was performing a vital role with regard to inquiries into bribery or corruption. Furthermore, the Commission was greatly handicapped by the non-filling of the vacancy caused by the death of a member, and by the obstacles that were arising in other ways.
At the end of Ananda Coomaraswamy’s speech, I addressed a question to him. My question was about the verdict given by the Commission on the complaint about a former Minister’s credit card. My question was as follows: “In regard to a complaint made against a former Minister about his obtaining a credit card worth Rs5 lakhs, in addition to the provision a Minister is legally entitled to when making foreign trips, the Commission concluded that it was not an offence that falls into the category of bribery or corruption. If I charge that the Commission, by thus issuing an open permit to Ministers to obtain money at will from institutions under them in addition to the provision they are legally entitled to when making foreign trips, has given protection to and has abetted an offense of the category of bribery or corruption, and has thereby committed a greater offence, what reply would you, as the Chairman of the Commission, give?”.
The Chairman’s reply was that it was a decision taken by the Commission and that, if there were any persons not satisfied with that decision, they could go before the Supreme Court against that decision.
I wanted to raise that question not because I wanted to attack this former Minister, but because I wanted to show that, by a policy of protecting him due to political reasons, the Commission had issued an open permit to all the Ministers to plunder state institutions at will. I wanted to illustrate that thereby the Commission had functioned as an institution that encouraged offences under the bribery and corruption category, instead of functioning as an institution that prevented such offences. There must be a system in the country to punish those commissions too when such serious offences are committed by such organizations maintained with public funds. It will be only then that the commissions will be able to function independently.
An ideology is being established in the world of politics that bribery and corruption should be considered a force of development and that such offences should not be hounded unnecessarily. The general thinking of the politicians of the country is right. A majority of Sri Lankans have become affluent not with money earned legally but with funds obtained by improper means. Politics in countries like Sri Lanka is a main way to quick wealth. In Sri Lanka, a person drawing a very high salary cannot purchase a luxury vehicle with the savings of a lifetime; however, a mere election to parliament will enable a person to do so. A person who becomes the head of state can, within a few years, make more money than what a major businessman can earn in a lifetime.
Every leading politician has one or several businessmen who look after him when he is out of power. When in power, those politicians, in turn, have to look after those businessmen. There is a great competition among some businessmen to look after those who are aspiring to be the head of state. All those businessmen know that if the person of their choice becomes the head of state, the interest on their expenditure will be very great. The politicians too know that they have an obligation to look after those who had looked after them when out of power, and that such repayment cannot be done on a legal basis.
If a majority of them have become rich through bribery and corruption, and if they have to depend for their political funds on means that are not legal, such politicians cannot welcome a system of organization that enforces the law against bribery or corruption. In that sense, they permit the existence of an institutional system that enforces the law against such offences, only if they are able to control that institutional system indirectly.
If bribery and corruption have become the motivating force of the politics of the country, then the political parties cannot agree to a program that would do away with bribery and corruption.
As much as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is unable to agree to a Bribery Commission controlled by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, she herself will not be able to agree to a Bribery Commission controlled by him. Both the parties cannot agree to an independent Commission either. If there is an independent Bribery Commission in the country, a certain number of politicians will have to be in prison rather than in parliament. In such circumstances, an independent Bribery Commission is a mere dream.