New laws to tackle crime: Champika

20 August 2015 02:07 pm Views - 9301

The new-UNP led government would give priority to introduce legislation strengthening financial crimes and similar other crime busting and to give more legal teeth to the Bribery Commission as existing laws were not sufficient to deal with financial mismanagement, embezzling, corruption and fraud, former minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said.

Addressing the media after a successful election campaign that brought the UNP-led rainbow coalition - the UNFGG - to power, Mr. Ranawaka said there was a huge challenge before the new government as the confidence and expectation reposed on the new government by over 5 million voters were immense.

“The people expect the government to continue the investigations by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID), the Police, the CID and the Bribery Commission on corruption, money laundering, misuse of state assets, ethanol and drug peddling in a more vigorous footing and bring perpetrators to book as early as possible. But the current laws and the judicial system are not strong enough to successfully tackle those crimes and convict and punish those charged. That is why we need new legislation to strengthen the relevant law enforcement institutions and the judicial system to address this problem sooner than later,” Mr. Ranawaka stressed.(Sandun Jayasekara)