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They call Sri Lanka “a country like no other” not without cause. But it is not for the reasons that tourism blurb writers first created it.

Recent events in this unique country have fortified the sobriquet first used to attract tourists from wherever. Now they come in their hordes to personally verify that there is indeed no other country like this.

Where would you find a nation-state where its leaders and their political acolytes pray for the wellbeing of the country at night and prey on it during the day to further fatten themselves and their kith and kin?

Such is the comedy that unfolds in this country that a new draft anti-corruption law requires 100,000 or more citizens to declare their assets including the personal staff of Pradeshiya Sabha members as though they would secretly deposit in some foreign tax haven the few hundred rupees they might gather under the counter to oil the administrative machinery.

All this while millions of rupees or dollars are changing hands in the higher echelons of the political and bureaucratic structures and the upper crust responsible remain untouched and untouchable.

The Pandora Papers exposed the alleged financial manipulations and wealth accumulation of a Sri Lanka politician of the Rajapaksa clan and her husband. The then-president who later resigned, ordered an inquiry into this expose’. The report was delivered. That was the last heard of it either from that president or his successor.

But all the bombast promising new anti-corruption laws that would be the toughest in South Asia will prove to be as empty at Mother Hubbard’s cupboard–hollow rhetoric, unless rounding up a Grama Sevaka Niladhari or a lowly traffic cop, is paraded as the zenith of its achievements.

Where have you heard of a country that admits a foreign man with a forged passport as identified by its border control officials and awaiting deportation back to Dubai, being allowed to set foot in this country despite his criminal offence, at the behest of an interfering minor political functionary?

Add to this blatant political interference which has not only undermined the authority of those officials at the BIA mandated to prevent such criminality and embarrassing them for performing their due task, it seems this unforgivable and unforgettable incident is heading for a shameless denouement.

And this is at a time when the eyes of the international community and international and regional organisations are peeled on this government and its governance and just when the IMF is calling for a clean-up of the system and a clamp down on corruption.

If what the media reports on this unsavoury event are correct — and there is no reason to doubt it — he is welcomed into the country, overruling the decision of the officials at the entry point, abusing the country’s rules and regulations and normal international practices.

This disgusting incident, where officials doing their duty have been subject to abuse by a person who is guilty of criminality and his associates, would only lead to responsible officials losing any regard in an administration that not only allows second-rate politicians to rule the roost but find themselves at the butt-end of official sanction.

It now smacks of an attempt to cover up the activities of the political interventionist and lay the blame on the officials who not only acted in good faith but performed their duty as prescribed in the book.

Shortly before writing this, I read a news report in “Daily Mirror Online” headlined “Allowing Chinese man with forged PP to enter country; no probe on Arundika Fernando: Alles”

It appears that Arundika Fernando, the State Minister for Urban Development and Housing had instructed Immigration officers to release the Chinese lawbreaker, permitting him to enter the country.

Another news report said that this state minister had written to the Immigration authorities calling for the release. It was also reported that he had claimed the Chinese was a foreign investor.

The story gets juicier before turning farcical making Sri Lanka a perennial comedy. If tourists turn up here in droves it is no thanks to the tourism ministry duo — Harin Fernando and his deputy, dear Diana, who knows a thing or two about passports and foreign investors like those who were expected to rush here to promote ganja so that all will be ‘high’, if not mighty

Lack of space prevents several other questions from being raised relating to this sordid issue which has further tainted Sri Lanka’s already blackened image. Moreover, there are other issues that should be examined because the whole affair smells to the high heavens.

The first question is why a potential investor — or so the story sold to us goes — should travel on a forged passport purportedly issued by the government of the Republic of Guinea.

It is doubly suspicious if this Chinese so-called investor is also said to have possessed a Chinese passport. Why would a genuine investor travel on a passport from a West African country deemed a forgery when he had a Chinese travel document? Is he shy to declare himself a Chinese national and if so why?

Should the public not be told more about this so-called housing project which this Chinese man is supposedly interested to invest in?

Public Security Minister Tiran Alles was quoted as saying that “no action” would be taken against State Minister Arundika Fernando. In the words of Alice, things are indeed getting curiouser and curiouser.

Minister Alles is now reported to have ordered the Immigration Department which is under him, to deport the offending Chinese.

All this hullabaloo would have been quite unnecessary if the Immigration officials at the airport had been allowed to do what they had initially decided to do — to deport him on the next flight without letting him into the country.

It was on the ‘instructions’ of Arundika Fernando and against the decision of the Immigration officials that this man and his two companions were allowed to enter.

So why is Alles wanting to question the decision of the Immigration officials which he now endorses, when he should be chastising his government colleague who is responsible for this questionable affair by interfering?

Nobody could be blamed if they smell something fishy.

When President JR Jayewardene opened up the economy and threw open the doors to foreign investors he said, half in jest, “let the robber barons come.”

This government is doing better. It wants forged passport holders to come. Whether to invest or pass the buck (or the bucks), who knows?

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)