Editorial

Bribery and corruption are now the second-most significant unlawful activity generating criminal proceeds in the country, states the National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment (NRA) of Sri Lanka released last week by the Central Bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

This is an alarming, though not entirely surprising development. Bribery, corruption and money laundering are predicate offences indicative of a deeper web of crime. With more actors—including those with the power and authority to act now “in the game”, this scourge has become much harder to stamp out.

Sri Lanka has a global reputation for being corrupt, with investors complaining for years about an uneven playing field, rigged bids and the unwritten rule that you need a political fixer “to get anything done”.

The NRA was part of a compulsory requirement of the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standard setters. As recently as 2018, FATF listed Sri Lanka among eleven “high-risk and monitored jurisdictions” that had taken insufficient measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats to the international financial system. It was only taken off the FATF’s “Grey List” in October 2019.

Domestically, there’s a marked lack of embarrassment. And if there is any action being taken on the anti-corruption front—on paper, at least—it’s because the exacting IMF programme that Sri Lanka has signed up to demands anti-corruption measures as part of its restructuring template. But without the political will to implement the laws, any promise of progress is eyewash.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe was quoted this week as telling the chief USAID Administrator on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) summit, that it will take two years to adopt the new Anti-Corruption Act as the Anti-Corruption Commission it set up was grappling to recruit trained staff.

During his tenure as Prime Minister in the ‘good governance’ administration, significant sums of foreign aid were poured into the anti-corruption and investigative machinery that the Government set up. Scores of investigations were initiated and some progressed remarkably well owing to a group of policemen who lapped up training and put their new skills to good use. Cases such as the probe into the Airbus bribe, the Krrish deal and many more were taken forward diligently, conscientiously and methodically, despite escalating pressure from higher-ups (both political and within the Financial Crimes Investigation Division and Police Department).

After the Government changed, these trained investigators were dispatched to the wilderness, transferred out of their areas of expertise for obvious reasons and assigned menial tasks. No number of new laws will solve this perennial, entrenched problem when even the existing ones are not implemented for lack of political will.

With the IMF cracking its whip, Sri Lanka might inch forward on its promised anti-corruption agenda “for show”. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Digitalisation programmes launched with grand fanfare fail—the National Medicines Regulatory Authority, the Inland Revenue Department and the Department of Immigration and Emigration are cases in point because computerisation processes will destroy the bribery ecosystem that thrives in plain view. The Bribery and Corruption Commission has been nothing but a ‘paper tiger’. Even the Police, themselves living off payoffs, have proved useless (with the good ones being transferred out the moment they get too close to netting the whales).

To pretend that new laws will change this scenario is, arguably, a misrepresentation of proven fact.

From UNGA to India-Canada spat

As the Cuban President said in his opening statement at the G77 summit last week in Havana, quoting an unforgettable remark by a colourful Venezuelan former President; “We Presidents go from summit to summit, and the people go from abyss to abyss.”

UNGA is always expected to deal with the future of this planet. The world body had several meetings with a range of world issues from assistance to poor nations to development goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 objectives—for a perfect world. On the issue of climate change, the UN Secretary General referred to global warming ranging from floods, droughts, hot weather and forest fires and said; “The gates to hell have opened”, emphasising the urgent need for action.

All these noble objectives of finding solutions to the world’s problems—and imagine a world without a UN—have been overshadowed by several sideshows that have gripped the world; a full-blown war in Europe; mini wars in Africa; tensions in the Indo-Pacific; boat refugees from the Global South to the Global North due to proxy conflicts engineered by super powers—all dragging the world into an unfathomable gorge.

And as if that is not enough, a seemingly defining moment in bilateral relations has arisen between two big nations viz., India and Canada in a ‘who Dunn it’ over the assassination of a Canadian citizen of Indian origin on Canadian soil.

It was only the other day that the Canadian PM made an utterly irresponsible statement that there was ‘genocide’ in Sri Lanka, a claim no other state has made, imposing sanctions ex-parte on Sri Lankan leaders. Canada pussyfooted Sri Lanka’s protests, but now has to contend with a bigger complainant. Good luck to them.

On the other hand, India, was once like Canada today, also a state sponsoring terrorism, offering a safe haven to separatist terrorists. It is now getting a taste of its own medicine in dealing with a virulent Diaspora. What goes around, comes around.

This friction will, no doubt, blow over sooner than later. For the West, India is a crucial bulwark against its enemy No. 1—China. Moral considerations like the rule of law, assassinations of dissidents, non-interference in other nations’ sovereignty etc., will have to give way in the larger scheme of global realpolitik.

If the Indian PM can shake hands with a Saudi Prince accused of assassinating a dissenter on foreign soil and welcome him as a state guest, he will surely expect some reciprocity for an alleged indiscretion of his spy agency’s own making.

If proven, India will surely qualify for a UN Security Council Permanent seat as eliminating opponents on foreign soil is the most difficult qualification required for such a seat.