Impunity should not be the norm of governance

Impunity and unaccountability seem to have become norm of governance in Sri Lanka. When decisions taken by Politicians and high ranking officials go wrong negatively affect millions of people they are just forgotten, without holding anybody responsible or accountable. Sometimes decisions that lead to major frauds are also either justified or merely ignored as if nothing happened. Even criminals are being discharged or court cases are withdrawn merely on technical grounds.

The popularity of the government is currently at a low ebb, despite President Gotabaya Rajapaksa being elected to office with a massive 6.9 million votes two years ago and his government having won two thirds of Parliamentary power, just 17 months back. With people having been forced to languish in queues wasting hours for essential items, they have started to show their anger even at the high profile politicians. It is ironic and in a way unfortunate that no leader seems to be honest or courageous to accept the responsibility to the current state of affairs. 
Some fourteen months ago, in November, 2020, the government announced that it would reduce duty on sugar imports from Rs.50 to 25 cents, an almost removal of import tax, fixing a lower price. However, traders contemptuously ignored the government’s gazette on the new price and further increased it after pocketing the duty reduction. Despite the government being armed with necessary legislations to control the traders in such situations no action was taken. 

The Opposition blamed that the annual loss incurred by the Treasury by this duty reduction was around Rs. 90 billion and that this was a calculated fraud. When the authorities were criticized in Parliament over this issue the government politicians questioned the Opposition whether they suggest re-imposition of the duty that was levied earlier, which might lead to another round of price hike. Later the matter was swept under the carpet, with no body taking responsibility to the loss incurred by the public coffers.

Now, it is clear that change in the composition of domestic gas contributed to the recent spate of gas related explosions and fire and still such incidents are being reported from various parts of the island every day. Subsequent to the investigation conducted by the committee appointed by the President and the public interest litigation initiated by civil society activist Attorney-at -Law Nagananda Kodithuwakku, it has been proved that it was the change in the composition of gas that has been the cause for the explosions and fire and not the “substandard” accessories used with the gas cylinder, as attributed by the heads of gas companies.  

The propane ratio in domestic gas had been only 20% when domestic gas was first used in Sri Lanka some forty years ago, but it has been raised up to 50% when the explosions started to occur. Even lives have been lost apart from heavy losses to properties of the people due to this criminal act. Who changed the composition? Who is accountable? When this question was put to a high ranking official of the Technology Ministry at a recent television interview, he said it was a mystery. The response by the heads of gas companies to the explosions was to increase the amount of the odour emanating Ethyl Mercaptan in gas. That was an acknowledgement of their culpability in reducing Ethyl Mercaptan as well, which warns any gas leak. Who is responsible for this decision that had put millions of lives in imminent danger? 

This is one of the issues that has brought the government’s popularity drastically down. If the leaders of the government are not interested in finding out the culprits in these issues and make them accountable for,  people would naturally conclude that those leaders are hand in glove with the culprits, as huge sums of money is involved in these acts.

Similarly, the decision to switch to organic farming in one cultivating season has almost destroyed the agriculture in the country posing a huge threat to the food security in the country. It was revealed that the price paid to Nano fertilizer imported from an Indian firm was far higher than the price revealed by a representative of the firm who had visited Sri Lanka recently. Politicians who defended the transaction before the Indian company revealed its price later dissociated from the transaction. The Opposition alleged that billions of rupees were swindled by this transaction. SATHOSA had recently sold two container loads of garlic to the Pettah businessmen at a price of Rs. 135 a kg and repurchased the same at Rs. 445 a kg. When newspapers exposed this racket, CID wanted to question the Editors of those newspapers. 

Unfortunately, nobody has been made accountable to any of these matters. Only three arrests were made in connection with the garlic scam. Can a nation progress without accountability for decisions and actions taken by the politicians and officials bringing mayhem into the lives of the people? Unaccountability and impunity would only lead to more and more such irregularities.