There has been much discussion recently over who should take the credit for introducing the so-called code of ethics at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. This comes at a time when many scams in the private sector are coming to light, or are under investigation.
Ethics, as we all know, is behaviour we consider morally acceptable. Stealing public funds and properties and cheating people contradict ethical behaviour.
The Chief Justice, who through certain recent judgments has emboldened the country’s entire judicial system to act without fear, said in court recently that Golden Key chairman Lalith Kotelawela should be in jail, rather resting in a hospital bed. Kotelawela, the self-appointed godfather of the private sector, is emerging as the Sri Lankan racketeer of the millennium.
We should thank The Sunday Times and the Daily Mirror for their impartial reporting on corruption in Sri Lanka’s blue chips. Even private TV channels, which happily go to town when a pathetic school teacher takes a bribe for a couple of hundred rupees, maintained a deafening silence over the Golden Key scam, which involves billions. In fact, referring to general media reluctance to report on the Golden Key scandal, a state counsel asked whether Kotelawela had become a media baron.
That is the sordid state of Sri Lanka’s private sector. |
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