Electronic surveillance system to eliminate financial malpractices

28 October 2015 04:11 am Views - 1569

The government will be implementing an electronic surveillance system to monitor all financial transactions and eliminate corruption in the country as it enters into the digital age.

“We’re being bullish and saying that cleanliness will come in because technology will be working for us and the manual interventions and determinations in the hands of individuals will be made electronic,” Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.

He said that taxation, customs payments etc. would also fall under this system. Central to the system is the SLIN identification number system which will provide a unique number to all citizens in the country.

According to Karunanayake, all government expenditure, incentives and subsidies would also be falling under the SLIN system.

“If you’re going to be receiving Rs. 2 in the future, it will be routed through this number. If some person has been receiving two or three Samurdhis at different points, we will ensure that dual registration is rooted out,” he said.

Karunanayake said that every Sri Lankan will have a bank account by next year and employers will only be able to pay wages through bank transfers, thus linking them to the SLIN system.

The system was originally developed for e-commerce applications currently being created by local companies.

Most Sri Lankans have not been able to engage in e-commerce as payment services such as Paypal have not been present in Sri Lanka due to shortcomings of the Central Bank under the past regime, while bank payment portals have been too expensive for the small and medium businesses.

The new regime has said that Paypal will be available in Sri Lanka soon, while 3 Sri Lankan companies are developing flexible payment portals similar to Google Wallet, which in addition to payments will enable real-time money transfers among any bank accounts of all citizens in the country.

“We want to ensure that e-commerce is advanced. Since we have been so far behind, let’s jump into the deep end, which should help to push us up to other countries who are five to ten years ahead of us,” Karunanayake stressed.

He said that the government will be modernized and squeaky clean going forward. (CW)