Eternal vigilance

Corruption and mismanagement have returned to the centre stage for the second time. The upcoming parliamentary election have proved to the people the cost of democracy is constant vigilance, this means punishing bad politicians while rewarding good ones. 

Many would argue that good politicians are few and far between in Sri Lanka. But after decades of electing parliamentarians and then handing over the responsibility of good governance to them resulting inevitably in disappointment voters have now realised they must demand honesty from their representatives – consistently. This is precisely why many hold the UNP to higher standards than their predecessors and will likely be harsher judges next month. 

Such an awakening consciousness also calls on voters to remember the past as well as the present. One glaring example of this was revealed by the media over the weekend through an excellent article detailing how the national carrier lost Rs. 785 m over three years due to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa chartering crafts to his frequent visits abroad. 

Jaw-dropping as that number is, it still does not account the numerous passenger delays, inconvenience at foreign airports and even dangers of redrafting flight plans so that they have less turnaround time. All to accommodate the whims of the former President.

This, together with the Board of Inquiry appointed to look into the affairs of SriLankan Airlines, alleges billions of public funds have been channelled into feeding a ravenous black hole of financial mismanagement, corruption, fraud and wastage with the highest levels of management either being found to be inept, complicit, or in many cases, direct instigators of such malpractice. 

Chief among concerns raised by the report would have to be the $ 2.3 billion spent on re-fleeting the carrier’s ageing aircraft, an exercise which the report alleges was carried out despite the availability of more cost-effective alternatives and for which it goes on to recommend that former SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickramasinghe face prosecution. 

Accusations of fraud have been levelled against SriLankan CEO Kapila Chandrasena while all recent procurement projects launched by the national carrier have also been called into question. The allegations of malpractice also stretch into recruitment processes with several instances of irregularities being highlighted, including one instance where a member of the airline’s cabin had, through a request from former Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, been released from the airline to work at the Presidential Secretariat but had actually been released to carry out political work for Namal Rajapaksa, all the while continuing to draw a salary from the airline, resulting in her being overpaid by Rs. 4.2 million.

Indeed the total findings of the report – which run the entire gamut from simple financial fraud to human smuggling and even cross into the murky waters of Wickramasinghe’s love life – read like a detailed explanation of how to run an airline… into the ground. This is the story of one State enterprise but it serves as a warning to many of how badly governance can deteriorate when there are no checks and balances in place.

Voting for a candidate based on blind loyalty or the litmus test of a few months while ignoring corruption that has piled up for years is in many ways betraying the system of democracy. Voters have to use their franchise again and again to make sure displeasure over corruption is taken seriously and hold their representatives accountable on the long road to good governance.