War on corruption: Walk the talk, please

The eighth President of Sri Lanka addressing the inaugural session of the ninth Parliament on Thursday announced that he would make the public service more efficient, get results out of his Ministers and declared war on corruption. 

The President stated that the public service needed to be more efficient and requested all the Ministers and State Ministers to take steps to provide fast and efficient service to the public via ministries, departments and institutions that come under their purview. President Rajapaksa further stated that waste and corruption in all ministries and institutions would be eradicated. 

The President assured: “In the future I will not hesitate to enforce the law against those involved in fraud and corrupt actions, irrespective of the status of any such perpetrators.” He also said that the progress of ministries and the public sector would be constantly reviewed and that he would not hesitate to effect necessary changes to implement policies of the Government if the relevant institution did not achieve its set targets. 

This is certainly music to the tax payers of this country. However, we in Sri Lanka have heard this before. However, the current President certainly means business. His wife’s Anoma simplicity and his no frills style of governance is very refreshing to a country where politicians and their children are only seen running around the country with sirens blaring and with escort vehicles having a great time at the expense of the 

taxpayers. 

Former President Sirisena also promised the stars and the moon to the voters. However, Sirisena ended up living in a 300 million mansion and doing something very different, earning the wrath of the public. The current President fortunately is not a politician and is a very disciplined man. He is known to be progressive in his thinking, having lived in 

the US. 

He is also known for being stern and decisive and committed to a colour free meritocracy. During his tenure as the Defence Secretary the Sri Lankan Armed Forces successfully concluded the Sri Lankan civil war, defeating the 

LTTE in 2009. 

For the President to achieve these lofty goals he has promised, he certainly needs a fresh team that understands the new trends and don’t have a history of failure or allegations. He is should take a cue from Finland. The political change that the President is proposing certainly heralds hope for the future. This hope must certainly not fall flat on our face like what the country saw with the Yahapalana Government of Sirisena-Wickremesinghe. The duo shattered the hopes and expectations of 6.4 million people.

Defeating corruption 

In Sri Lanka crushing the corruption that has long poisoned country’s politics and undermined its economy is certainly a huge challenge. There will be resistance. He’ll have to do all this with a Parliament in which more than 60% of members have served in previous governments. 

The Government this week appointed a committee to probe the affairs of Bank of Ceylon, People’s Bank, National Savings Bank, Regional Development Bank, and their related institutions. The committee is expected to look into instances of fraud in lending, transactions and other irregularities in the four major State banks during the last five years. The committee will be tasked with making recommendations on legal, financial and administrative measures to be taken to prevent such situations in the future, identifying officials and outsiders responsible for financial losses, and making the necessary recommendations to make the State banking system more people-friendly. The report with the relevant recommendations willbe submitted to the Cabinet via the Ministry of Finance within three months. 

The most notable fraud in the last five years was the Central Bank of Sri Lanka bond scandal. The current President got elected to power with a credible promise of change. People have faith in the man. He’ll now have to show exactly what that means. Especially after his stern inaugural address on Thursday.

Parliamentarians need to focus on rebuilding the image of Parliament. Many parliamentarians yesterday posted selfies on the public domain instead of commenting on the policy statement.