It’s the political will that matters most

A new anti-corruption law proposed by the Government envisages the creation of an Independent Commission to deal with corruption in the country. Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe had told media that the Bill will be presented in Parliament soon. 

Sri Lanka has earned a very bad international reputation for corruption, with even the International financial institutions pressing the government to take decisive action to minimize corruption as a prerequisite for their assistance to overcome the current economic mess. 

It is a well-known fact that the country is in such dire straits that it decided to temporarily default foreign debt payments in April. Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from which the authorities decided to seek assistance to overcome the situation after much haggling had told NDTV in May that the economic crisis in Sri Lanka is a result of mismanagement. In a recent interview, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa also had acknowledged that all past governments and leaders including him have to be held responsible for the current economic downturn.

The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) said in July that any IMF agreement with Sri Lanka must be contingent on the independence of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, strong anti-corruption measures, and promotion of the rule of law. “Without these critical reforms, Sri Lanka could suffer further economic mismanagement and uncontrollable debt,” the official twitter account of the FRC said. 

Mark Malloch-Brown, the President of the Open Society Foundations and former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan had stated in June that Sri Lanka has a history of diverting aid and the IMF must acknowledge the reason the country is in this mess by putting this issue on the agenda with the country. “Otherwise, they risk bailing out corrupt politicians instead of people in need,” Malloch-Brown had warned. 
Citing economic mismanagement as one of the major factors that contributed to the current economic debacle, the Amnesty International also called on the IMF in June to “build measures to guarantee   accountability and public scrutiny to avoid corruption.” 

The St. Kitts and Nevis-based Hamilton Reserve Bank Ltd had filed legal action against Sri Lanka in a New York court in June over the country’s default on its US$1 billion sovereign bond. In its plaint the bank had referred to some leaders in Sri Lanka for being repeatedly accused of lining their own pockets through years of corruption. Citing former US government officials and investigative journalists, it further said that they have “amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune and hidden part of it in bank accounts in offshore jurisdictions such as Dubai, Seychelles and St. Martin.”

Even before these suggestions to the IMF, the international lender had given priority to mitigate corruption in Sri Lanka. After a visit to the country, the IMF team on June 30, observed in a statement that the challenges that need addressing include reducing “corruption vulnerabilities” among others. The current Bill is said to have prepared in line with it.  And the government has responded with this Bill to the recent report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the resolution adopted on October 6 at the 51st Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which referred to “economic crimes” including corruption.

It is not the matter of law that stands in the way to eradicate or mitigate corruption. It is purely the political will of the leaders of the country that really matters in this regard. This is a country where leaders appointed commissions to nullify certain judicial proceedings on corruption and crimes. The process was halted after incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe took office. 

Many cases of corruption and crimes were withdrawn and some were dismissed on technical grounds recently after the regime change in 2019. And Sri Lanka has a nefarious history of dumping corruption and criminal cases after such withdrawals or dismissals, without re-opening them to find out the culprits. This leads to authorities to press the law enforcement officials to file weak cases against politicians and high ranking officials. 

And also the inaction on the part of so many institutions that have particularly been tasked to deal with corruption, especially in respect of cases involving politicians and top government officials is incredible. The famous sugar tax fraud was one of the best cases in point. There have been instances where instead of initiating judicial probes, committees and commissions were appointed to investigate allegations against politicians and they were cleared summarily. 

All these point that the real issue in eradicating or mitigating corruption is not lack of laws, but lack of political will.