Sunday Times 2
Corruption wizards abhor the UN Convention Against Corruption
Calling it a “scam of monumental proportions”, the Sunday Times editorial highlighted the shenanigans behind the Rs.11 billion Central Bank Bond Scam.Although the Editor referred to the Bond Scam as “a scandal unprecedented in the annals of contemporary Sri Lanka”, the country has been plagued with fraud, bribery and corruption for decades.
Even Sri Lankans with short memories may vividly remember the barrage of serious allegations levelled against Mahinda Rajapaksa and his clan and other politicians during the last general elections. Corruption was the principal reason why Rajapaksa lost his bid for a third term as president in January 2015. There is, of course, no surprise here that the “sharks” are still floating around, and not a penny of looted money has been recovered to date – even though President Sirisena’s yahapalanaya government came to power with promises to throw the culprits in jail, and recover the stolen loot that rightfully belong to the people of our country.
Though the Monetary Board claims that about Rs. 10.5 billion of the Bond Scam offending company’s money is frozen and can be used to reimburse the losses to the state institutions in this scam, many believe that it is time for the Government to not only throw these robber barons in jail but confiscate every penny of ill-gotten wealth these crooks own.
As for “lack of justice” in fraud cases, the editorial correctly pointed to a recent Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Secretariat at which “an angry President Maithripala Sirisena pointedly accused his partner in governance, the United National Party (UNP), of stalling investigations into allegations of bribery, corruption and other acts of fraud allegedly committed by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his family members, close associates and top officials.” That is Sri Lankan justice for the rich and powerful.
Sri Lanka’s recorded history of atrocious corruption dates back to 2001 when 20 public sector institutions, and in 2002, 15 public sector institutions of Sri Lanka were identified as involved in bribery and corruption. Our deplorable record as “one of the most corrupt countries in the world” is well documented in the annals of the UN, the World Bank and the Transparency International.
It is no secret that while the former Ambassador to Russia allegedly involved in the corrupt MIG deal under the Rajapaksa regime is still absconding, we hear about another 195 million Dollar mega deal with Russia to purchase a redundant warship for double the price of its actual value: Another crafty deal to pocket millions of dollars.
While no country is immune from this scourge of corruption, it is a key element in economic under-performance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development. It is with this premise that the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) entered into force in 2005 – now with 140 signatories of UN’s member states.
The Convention covers five main areas: Preventive measures, criminalisation and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery, and technical assistance and information exchange. An important feature of the Convention is the inclusion of a specific chapter on asset recovery, aimed at returning assets to their rightful owners, including countries from which they had been taken illicitly.
To assist member states to tackle this global epidemic of corruption, the UN established the Corruption and Economic Crime Branch (CEB) at the UN in Vienna, Austria. The CEB is tasked with responsibilities to cooperate with governments to recover stolen assets by gathering evidence, extradition and tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscating the proceeds of corruption; provide aid in asset recovery through the prevention and detection of transfers and the recovery and return of assets.
Though Sri Lanka is a party to UNCAC, it has not made use of these legal mechanisms freely available to UN’s member states to eliminate corruption, and recover looted assets that have been transferred to other countries. In the case of Sri Lanka, it is most unlikely that our corrupt government would ever charge those guilty of corruption, and use UN’s unique expertise to identify and retrieve stolen funds.
Thanks to the persistent drum beat by the local media, people know that they have been robbed and thrown into poverty by a few greedy, crooked and power hungry politicians and public servants. Make no mistake: Voters don’t need binoculars to see who have robbed their national wealth. Possession of abundant unexplained, unearned wealth by any politician or public servant is a visible sign of stolen funds, meant to develop our country.