Fighting a war against another aggressor nation-state is a war against an external enemy. The whole nation generally comes together with relative ease to present a unified front against ‘the enemy’. But corruption within our own society, our nation, presents us with a far tougher battle: for our souls and our civilization.
This nation, after decades of a growing canker of bribery and other forms of corruption, knows full well the seriousness of the problem. Worse, this nation has also watched, with dismay the continued failure by successive governments, to rigorously prosecute corruption and effectively end, or at least reduce, its malignant impact. Even worse, the nation has learnt, thanks to a brave news media as well to risk-taking anti-corruption civic activism, that this record of political failure is closely linked to the immense corruption within the nation’s political community, especially in times of holding office.
In short, this nation, when looking over seven decades of postcolonial nationhood, sees a shocking and intolerable complicity between the corrupt and our elected governing leadership. This complicity may be seen in numerous instances of actual acts of corruption by elected officials on the one hand, and, a parallel neglect by elected officials to investigate, prosecute and punish the corrupt whether they are from among the citizenry or from among the politicians themselves.
Social analysts may argue whether this canker of corruption began at the top of the social heap and filtered down to the grassroots or whether the flow was from the bottom upward. What we certainly know, again, thanks to the news media and many a brave ‘whistle-blower’, is that the disease has penetrated nearly all corners of our national community leaving nary a sector uninfected.
It seems that neither a President of the state, nor Cabinet leaders, nor provincial or local government leaders, nor a chairman of an authority, nor officials of the administration from capital to village have been immune to the disease. Neither has the private sector, whether big corporates or small business been immune. And we, the ordinary citizens, well know how much corruption we practise in our daily lives, whether it is over a speeding ticket, getting regulatory approvals for housing, drainage or landfills or, in school admissions for our children, among many other aspects of life.
Corruption is a kind of ‘inner demon’ of our society that is most difficult to detect and combat.
With the coming to power of the current Government in 2015, this nation has observed for the first time the activation of a whole infrastructure dedicated to the detection and prevention of corruption in governance. While the extant Bribery Commission has been overhauled and given more teeth, entirely new mechanisms have also been set up with high priority to implement the National Unity coalition’s promise of ‘good governance’.
However, the number of actual prosecutions is yet few, with most of the cases still remaining at the stage of investigation and evidence gathering. The citizenry, having heard, ad nauseam, the accusations of corruption against the previous government and presidency, has, naturally become impatient at the tardiness with which those so accused have been either brought to justice or have had their names cleared of wrong-doing.
This is why every success in detecting and prosecuting cases of bribery and corruption must be celebrated and the officials and agencies involved commended.
Last week, bribery detectives arrested two senior government officials in the act of accepting a massive cash bribe by a business group. The Chief of Staff of the President was arrested along with the Chairman of State Timber Corporation. According to news reports, they are accused of accepting a Rs. 100 million bribe to speed up the necessary implementation approvals for a major agro-industrial project led by a foreign investor.
So far, they are among the most senior sitting administration officials to be arrested on bribery charges under the current regime. With corruption a major national issue not just of our recent past but also of our present, such an arrest is being keenly watched by the nation as a whole. In fact the world community also watches, especially, our close allies and those who want to do business with Sri Lanka.
This regime, no doubt more sensitive to a citizenry tired of fakery and cover-ups, has had a record of picking up and pursuing many cases of corruption. To its credit, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition has not wavered in probing and prosecuting most of the cases of corruption detections of its own officials – from the most low-ranking to, now, the President’s own Chief of Staff.
The fact that the CIABOC has proceeded with this particular case of those nearest to the centre of state power clearly demonstrates the degree of empowerment of these important agencies that protect the integrity of our state. The President has already supported the CIABOC by immediately suspending the work of these two suspects.
The citizenry will eagerly watch this investigation being taken to its logical conclusion without fear or favour unlike in the past. Justice has to be seen to be done for our Republic to recover from its current fallen state.