Roots of bribery and corruption
Corruption in Sri Lanka is not a failure of individual character but a system built deliberately, Victor Ivan argues — traced here from J.R. Jayewardene’s admiration for Napoleon to the party machinery that now depends on it.
කූට ලේඛන සංස්කෘතිය (ජාතික හැඳුනුම්පත හා ගමන් බලපත්රය)
Answering officials who disputed details in his series on the bureaucracy, Ivan stands by his accounts and then turns to how deep forgery runs. Using Dayananda Dissanayake’s Nuwara Eliya deal, he calculates the Treasury’s loss at over Rs. 6.1 million on one plot. Birth certificates without serial numbers, a corrupt identity-card office that issued LTTE suicide bombers genuine-looking cards, and a passport office that keeps no copies have created an industry, fed above all by the trade in underage and overage housemaids for the Middle East. Forgery, he says, now runs from school admissions to medical licences and doctorates.
මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස් වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය
Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya collected candidates’ asset declarations with zeal, Ivan argues, only to lock them away, telling Ravaya that the public needs a court order to see them. The 1988 amendment to the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Law gives anyone the right to certified copies for a fee. Ivan recounts how he first saw Lalith Athulathmudali’s declaration, the People’s Alliance’s broken 1994 pledge to publish ministers’ assets, the Speaker who complied and the President’s office that did not, and reproduces a 2005 letter from Deshapriya’s predecessor sending him six declarations — disproving the claim that there is no precedent.
විදුලි මාෆියාව ඇත්තක්ද?
Weighing the arguments of Tilak Siyambalapitiya, Udaya Gammanpila, Harsha de Silva, Champika Ranawaka and the CEB chairman on the 2013 power tariff increase, the article argues that the root problem is Sri Lanka’s dependence on oil-fired private power costing Rs 40–45 a unit against Rs 1.50 for hydro. It asks who blocked the Norochcholai coal plant in 2002 so that oil plants could be tendered instead, why the Chinese plant keeps breaking down, and why the one-sided private power contracts exposed by the Central Bank in 2007 remain secret.
වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය ක්රියාත්මක කිරීම
The policy the elections commissioner followed on the assets and liabilities law at the last provincial council election was excellent. What would have been better still was an order that every candidate file a declaration with the nomination papers — and to get round the defect of not doing so he required all the winners to file by 15 October and the defeated candidates by 30 October.
අපරාධකරණය හා පාදඩකරණය
The clash at Kolonnawa on polling day between the government member Duminda Silva and the former member and presidential adviser Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, and the tragedy that came of it, is a powerful event that gives a warning signal not only to the president and his party but to every political party in the country and to the society.
කොළඹ නගර සභා මැතිවරණය හා වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය
The crafty and comical way the assets and liabilities law works at elections was shown again at the Colombo municipal poll. The law matters at an election because it gives voters the right to know the background of the candidates’ assets and liabilities — and they get that right only if candidates file their declarations with their nomination papers.
ඉන්දියානු ඇමතිවරුන්ගේ වත්කම් විවාදය හා ශ්රී ලංකාව
After Anna Hazare’s satyagraha the Indian prime minister’s office published, on 3 September, the latest declarations of assets and liabilities of the 77 members of the cabinet, as a step towards rebuilding the public confidence that had collapsed. A research institute working on democracy compared them with what the same ministers had filed with the election commission in 2009.
ප්රමිතිය නොසලකන ජාතියක්
What has come out about the great railway accident at Alawwa on the 17th shows that those responsible gave no thought to the standards that must be considered when trains are bought and put into use. We have heard of motor cars made with fibreglass; we had not heard of railway power sets made with it. A car carries very few people and a train carries thousands.
වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
After Anna Hazare’s satyagraha succeeded, the Indian prime minister and the members of his cabinet published their declarations of assets and liabilities for the public to see. It can be read as a step to control the disillusion growing among people towards the leaders of the government — and as a very important by-product of the popular struggle against corruption.