Monday, 6 April 2015 00:00
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The Board of Inquiry appointed to look into the affairs of SriLankan Airlines took its findings public just prior to the extended weekend and the results ought to be a source of embarrassment to all Sri Lankans.
If the findings of the Board of Inquiry are to be believed, then it would appear that 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 aging 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 Sri Lankan 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. Assuming that the report’s recommendations for civil and criminal prosecution are followed, it would appear that the ‘Yahalpalanaya’ regime’s first few trophies to be mounted on its wall of corruption will be those of the Chairman and CEO of SriLankan Airlines.
More importantly however, the report goes on to implicate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in relatively minor instances of corruption.
There would appear to be little point in denying that the new regime has struggled with the larger issues of corruption since it came into office. The public perception that the new regime may just be ‘all talk, no action’ has been building up and certainly must be a source of concern with elections looming ever closer.
Consequently, the report on SriLankan Airlines has the potential to turn the tide in the debate on corruption, giving the ‘Yahalpalanaya’ regime its first true victory over clear-cut corruption.
The new regime has been fond of hurling vitriol at the malpractices and corruption of the previous Government. However, it has, despite showing clear intentions to dismantle the Rajapaksa legacy, been relatively restrained in its approach to the former first family and wisely so. Perhaps the inclusion of Mahinda and Namal Rajapaksa in the findings of the report may signal another change in tact as well.
