In how many countries would heads of governments go before a high-level investigation to provide information that would help in that probe? Tomorrow Sri Lankans will see a new chapter in our Republic when, for the first time, a sitting Prime Minister faces questions in an official investigation into allegations of irregularities and corruption in a government institution.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe tomorrow goes before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Central Bank bond transactions, at the invitation of the Commission, to provide any information that might help the Commission’s investigation. The ‘Bond Inquiry’, as this on-going investigation is popularly called, has drawn much public attention as a probe that may lay bare alleged massive corruption by bureaucrats and business people.
The public’s interest in corruption in the public sector has risen to a pitch in the wake of the era of unprecedented corruption by politicians, bureaucrats and business cronies during the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. The citizens’ awareness has been stretched almost beyond belief at the sheer scale of the bribery, scams and wastage of public funds and resources during the decade of the Rajapaksa presidency.
Even more scandalous has been the emerging picture of not just massive corruption but the blatant effrontery with which the rip off has been perpetrated in this past decade of the Rajapaksas, with seemingly barely concealed irregular directives and illicit deals flying in the face of economic and budgetary rationality.
With this recent past history of mis-governance, citizens are rightly alert to these issues and when the Bond Commission wanted clarifications from the Prime Minister, Mr. Wickremesinghe has been fittingly sensitive to these public sensibilities. After all, his National Unity coalition government was elected on a wave of huge public disillusionment over the previous regime’s charade of pseudo patriotism that disguised the nepotistic rip-off of the country.
Having won the nation’s political confidence to govern, Mr. Wickremesinghe is clearly ready to face his nation at any time with his side of the facts, thereby sustaining that confidence.
The Premier is a senior public officer responsible for financial policy and critical financial decisions in government. The Central Bank operates according to financial and economic policy guidelines laid down by the Government. Thus, the Bond probe needed to obtain clarification from the Prime Minister about these matters as related to their inquiry.
The Premier’s ready co-operation with such an investigation may puzzle those who had got used to the kind of cavalier attitude towards matters of law and order by leaders of the previous regime. After all, it was during the Rajapaksa regime that incorruptible judges and other public officers were pushed around, to enable wheeler dealers and thugs to get away with robbery and murder.
Avoidance of justice was the name of the game in those days and the public began to become either indifferent to public integrity or ignorant of the need for rigour in the national accounts. All this changed with the arrival of the ‘Good Governance’ coalition with its promise to reverse the trend to national bankruptcy.
Premier Wickremesinghe’s testimony tomorrow in front of the Bond Commission will be testimony to this commitment to national renewal.
Gintota: firm action
What has happened in Gintota last week that has provoked communal clashes? Why are these incidents of social altercations – that cause no human casualties – between a few individuals, escalating into community level violence and enmity?
According to reports from the district, there had been nothing more than just two minor altercations between individuals in which the difference of ethnicity was but a coincidence. That is to say, those original altercations were not on communal grounds but were merely moments of human friction between individuals on everyday issues – a narrative of daily life among people.
But, every society has those elements who wish to twist such minor events of dissonance in daily human intercourse into something that affects whole communities. Such is the social insecurity of some people that they must raise their petty concerns to the level of the whole society and large sectors of that society. The escalation to communal level clashes helps raise those petty insecurities into something more important. The racist desires of individuals are lent a sense of social legitimacy through such communal provocation.
Already, the Government has moved swiftly in Gintota to bring the situation under control. From Ministers downwards, the political leadership has honestly and publicly acknowledged the tension rather than hiding it and, identified the unruly dynamics that led to this situation there.
This country is well experienced in handling ethnic communal unrest with both governmental machinery as well as civil society, now geared to respond quickly and rationally to such provocations. The citizenry must allow local political as well as community leaderships to engage and resolve the conflict. The people must retain discipline and not be misled or provoked by unruly elements out to exploit minor incidents for their nefarious purposes whether communal or criminal.