Anti-bribery drive blocked

• Commission chairman says removal of DG was arbitrary

All bribery probes have come to a standstill with the removal of the Director General of the Permanent Commission to investigate Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), its Chairman and former Supreme Court judge Ameer Ismail said yesterday. He said that Piyasena Ranasinghe, a former Magistrate had been removed from his post as Director General by President Mahinda Rajapaksa without any prior consultation with the Commission.

He said he was unaware of the reasons for the move. Justice Ismail said that according to the relevant Act passed in 1994, the President in consultation with the Commission could appoint the Director General. Though the procedure of removal was not specified in the Act, he said he believed the same process should have been followed.

The letter transferring the DG was signed by President Rajapaksa and it says that to "re-organise" the Commission there was need to appoint a new Director General and therefore Mr. Ranasinghe had been transferred to the Presidential Secretariat.

Accordingly Mr. Ranasinghe who had served as DG from November 2001 reported for duty on Thursday at the Secretariat, but has not been assigned any specific task. Mr. Ranasinghe when contacted by The Sunday Times declined to comment. Though the President's transfer letter claimed that Mr. Ranasinghe was removed to ‘re-organise’ the Commission, opposition parties charged that the move was linked to ongoing or concluded investigations by Mr. Ranasinghe.

Opposition UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament that Mr. Ranasinghe’s removal might be linked to a move to hush up the probe on the multi-billion-rupee deal for the purchase of MiG 27 fighter jets from Ukraine. JVP's Parliamentary Group Leader MP Wimal Weerawansa demanded that the government should stop removing officials who refused to act according to its whims.

The President’s Office has so far not issued any statement, responding to the opposition charges. In 2001 the Commission’s Acting Director General, Rienzie Arsceculeratne, was removed from his post, but in that case the Commission members had sent a report to the then President who acted on the report to remove him.

Mr. Ranasinghe served as a magistrate in Embilipitiya, Negombo and Gampaha before he took up the post as Director General of the Commission in 2001. Meanwhile Lakshmi Jayawickrama has been appointed as the Acting DG of the Commission, but according to the chairman, cases could not be filed by the Acting DG as the Act provides only for the Director General to file action.

He said that until a Director General was appointed, the Commission would not be able to file any action. The sudden removal of Mr. Ranasinghe has drawn strong condemnation not only from opposition parties but also from civic groups. The Transparency International Sri Lanka, part of the global coalition against corruption, said it was shocked to learn that the President had transferred the Director General of an independent Commission which was set up through an act of parliament to ensure impartial anti corruption inquiries without interference from the President or any other executive arm of the government. "The instant transfer has definite adverse impact on the independent working of the Commission. It is not only unusual and questionable but also setting an irreversible bad precedent on the anti-corruption drive in the country,” TISL chief J. C. Weliamuna said.