Ranil moots ‘constitutional revolution’ as way out of corrupt debt trap

• Opp. Leader says Govt. has sold people’s judicial power to a NY District Court
• Claims only way out of debt trap is to appeal to Paris Club to write off Govt.’s corrupt loans as ‘odious debt’ following regime change
• Rajiva says P’ment cannot perform oversight as long as majority of MPs are cabinet ministers
• Calls for electoral and standing order reform to strengthen COPE and COPA and curb corruption

By Dharisha Bastians

A ‘constitutional’ or ‘legal’ revolution to effect regime change is Sri Lanka’s best hope and may provide the only way out of the debt trap the incumbent administration had ensnared the country in, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday, urging political parties and civil society to accept his party’s proposals for a new constitution that would restore sovereignty to the people and curb state sector corruption and wastage.

Addressing a Parliamentarians Round Table on Combating Corruption organised by Transparency International Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe said that the Rajapaksa administration’s propensity for commercial borrowing and sovereign bond issues had fuelled mass scale corruption because of the commission system that had been institutionalised into Government to Government and Export-Import Bank loan contracts.

“Today the Government’s primary expenditure is to service our debt. As a result, our education and health sectors suffer because spending is curtailed in these vital sectors,” the UNP Leader said.

Explaining that following invasion in 2003, the US had negotiated Iraq out of the massive debts owned by the Saddam Hussein regime by arguing regime change, a constitutional revolution and by labelling the loans as ‘odious debt’ to finance a corrupt Iraqi leadership.

 “This is Sri Lanka’s only way out of the debt trap the Government has placed the country in,” Wickremesinghe charged, saying the Paris Club, an informal grouping of financial officials from the world’s largest economies that are also home to the biggest global banks had accepted the ‘regime change and odious debt’ arguments in the case of Iraq.

Wickremesinghe said there was no way to combat corruption in the present context without a constitutional revolution that would give people’s power back to the people.

“Today the Government’s commercial borrowings have meant that the people’s judicial power, vested by the Constitution in the Sri Lankan Court system, has been sold to a New York District Court that will be the arbiter of these commercial loan contracts,” he charged.

Wickremesinghe claimed the UNP’s new proposed constitution was unique in that it would be enacted following a referendum of the people.

“The people need to take back their sovereignty, otherwise under this Government some judge in New York will decide on Sri Lanka’s future. Until sovereignty is returned to the people, there can be no way to curb corruption,” he charged.

UPFA National List MP Rajiva Wijesinha, one of only three Government MPs present at the roundtable, said it was regrettable that corruption was a focus point for political parties only when they were in opposition. Wijesinha said it was his view that three things had to be changed in order to stem corruption in the State sector.

He said the standing orders of Parliament had to be reformed in order to entrench anti-corruption provisions and institutionalise measures to curb corruption by strengthening parliamentary oversight committees such as COPE and the Public Accounts Committee.

Wijesinha also claimed that legislative oversight was not possible until the size of the Cabinet was reduced. “This is why all three proposals for constitutional reform in the recent past have included provisions to limit the size of the Cabinet,” he explained. The UPFA MP said it was impossible for Parliament to perform its oversight function in terms of public finance when a majority of parliamentarians were Cabinet ministers or part of the Executive branch.

“If you take any executive presidential system in the world, whether Russia, France or the US, members of the cabinet cannot remain in the legislative body. They must resign – this is fundamental to the checks and balances and oversight functions of the Legislature,” Wijesinha said.

The third of Wijesinha’s proposals to combat corruption was the reform of the electoral system that pitted politicians against each other in financial competition to successfully contest elections. “The electoral system is the most corrosive element that afflicts the body politic and must be changed,” he charged.

Also addressing the meeting, retired Auditor General S.C. Mayadunne said that the task entrusted to the people’s representatives to control public finance by Article 148 of the Sri Lankan Constitution is one that cannot be abdicated any of the Legislature’s 225 members, whether they be in Government or the Opposition.

UPFA MP who defected from the UNP Manusha Nanayakkara told the roundtable that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was keen to minimise Government corruption but charged that the Opposition was failing in its duty by not doing enough to expose corruption in the State sector. UNP MP Sujeewa Senasinghe retorted that Opposition MPs who levelled corruption charges against the Government were intimidated and harassed with lawsuits.