Keep Auditor General’s  office free from political interference

The President’s decision to nominate an outsider to the post of the next Auditor General of Sri Lanka has become a test of the sincerity of the Government to uphold its pledge to depoliticise State sector institutions. It has also put President Anura Kumara Disanayake in an embarrassing position with the Constitutional Council rejecting his nominee by a majority vote.

The CC has agreed to a six-month extension for the senior most serving officer in the AG’s Department G.H.D. Dharmapala as acting AG but how the Government handles this case in the coming weeks will be crucial for its credibility.

Trade unions in the audit sector have come out strongly against the President’s decision to send the name of a person who has no or little audit experience to CC for the post which fell vacant more than a month ago when the serving AG retired.

In a letter sent to all members of the CC, the Trade Unions Collective of the audit services said that in the 225-year history of the AG Department, 41 Auditors General have served in the post, and except for two who were drawn from outside the service, all others were officers of the department. They also said that G.H.D. Dharmapala who holds the Acting AG post, is the most suitable person to be the next Auditor General, with over 30 years’ experience and an impeccable record in service.

It’s commendable that the Government is sticking to its guns in cracking down on past cases of corruption but this alone will not shift the focus away from the attempts to use its excessive powers by making political appointments in places where there are qualified and efficient career officers suitable for such positions.

Despite election promises to abolish the Executive Presidency, it’s becoming evident that the more one sits on the hot seat, the more reluctant they are to give it up. President Disanayake, no doubt is getting a taste of the absolute powers that the Executive Presidency gives its holder and like many of his predecessors, may lose his way.

The current President’s woes with the CC are not entirely new. Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe was at loggerheads with the Constitutional Council during his tenure over its rejection of his nominee Nissanka Bandula Karunaratne as a Supreme Court judge as well as over the appointment of Deshabandu Thennakoon as the Inspector General of Police.

There is no doubt that the CC was set up with the objective of making appointments to high office more credible and transparent but by its very composition it is a political body and there will always be the inevitable clash between the executive and the CC. The kind of ambiguity over the role of the CC can only be overcome when a new constitution is drafted, as promised by the NPP.

But for now, the Government has a bigger responsibility towards those who voted for it with high hopes for real change, particularly in making State institutions independent. But the current developments don’t give much hope that the NPP is genuinely interested in ‘system change’ as it pledged but just a tinkering of the systems that already exist.

In a world where might is right, at least where political power is concerned, the NPP is mighty powerful and can use its power to do as it wishes, but the repercussions will be heavy. “Every day is not Christmas in politics,” one Opposition legislator said in Parliament last week. Wise words which the Government needs to heed as the warning signs are already on the wall over its declining popularity as seen by the Local Government election results.