Same yardstick should be applied when investigating corruption/bribery

The same way that the bond scam continues to haunt former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the container scam involving the release of a large number of containers from the Colombo Port without due clearance will haunt President Anura Kumara Disanayake and his Government for a long time to come.

This week in Parliament, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Mujibur Rahman tabled a report in Parliament of the committee that looked into the release of the containers which exposed serious lapses in the mandatory container scanning process.

The report, compiled by a committee appointed by the President, revealed that 37 high-risk red-labelled containers were released without being scanned, despite clear instructions such scanning was required.

In total, 103 containers that were due for mandatory screening were released without scans and two containers were released even before the official decision to permit such action was made on 18 January.

The findings of the committee confirm the suspicions raised by many that there was some hanky panky in the manner the 323 containers were released in January this year. The Customs Department comes under the purview of the President and hence there is added responsibility on the Government to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in such instances.

Last month the release of a prisoner under the Presidential pardon system caused uproar and the Prisons Commissioner and an Assistant Commissioner were arrested and remanded over it. However we are yet to see the list which had been signed off by the President granting the pardons as well as the accountability of the Secretary to the President and the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice in the process. Also the man, who was released, though not qualified for such a release, is walking free and no steps have been taken to arrest and remand him. If the man was really unduly released, why hasn’t he been re-arrested?

The mainstay of this Government is its fight against corruption. In this connection a long line of former ministers, MP, officials have been arrested, remanded or are on bail while trials against several too have started. Almost all these cases are ones that were filed under the previous Government but the process which was moving at tortoise speed has now been quickened. This is welcome given that the fight to end corruption has to start somewhere and without due punishment, future offenders will be more emboldened to continue in their bad ways.

That said, there are serious questions on how transparent and accountable the Government is when it comes to curbing wrongdoings on the part of their members.

The former speaker Asoka Ranwala’s fake PhD is one such case where he lied about his qualifications, a punishable offence if it was committed by an average citizen but the man continues to be an MP with no punishment. There was then the case of the Deputy Minister of Public Security Sunil Watgala who alleged that 17 passports had been obtained by an imposter claiming to be from his staff. A CID complaint followed but we are not told what happened to the investigation. The public would like to know what happened to these cases.

Added to these there are questions over salt to rice imports. These haven’t been as transparent as they should be. There are also many businessmen who have been appointed to Government positions with serious conflicts of interests. These too remain shielded.

So while the crackdown on corruption/bribery /financial crimes is welcome, the Government’s hands aren’t exactly clean. Slowly but surely some misdeeds are being exposed and these could blow up in the Government’s face in the future.