Columns

Every decade or more Sri Lanka’s functioning president or the Speaker of parliament, euphemistically called an “august assembly”, tries to tame its temporary inhabitants to conduct themselves as respectable and respected representatives of the people.

I wonder how many remember that way back in the early 1990s President Ranasinghe Premadasa tried to bring some order and dignity to the House of Parliament which had moved to its new abode by the Diyawanna Oya, Kotte, from its former imposing colonial building by the sea in Galle Face.

If the change from seawater to fresh water was expected to enhance the dignity, integrity and reputation of the people’s representatives in keeping with the money spent on that ostentatious and modern place of assembly, it has proved an exercise in futility.

Unfortunately, I cannot lay my hands right now on the code of conduct for his ministers and his party MPs that President Premadasa had initiated. But I do remember that it laid down very strict rules which, if they had continued to be exercised and more broadly applied to include those holding high public office, would have maintained the integrity of
Sri Lanka’s ministers, MPs and officials for decades, sowing the seeds for a governance culture underpinned by moral rectitude.

President Premadasa was very strict on ministers attending dinners/ lunches at the invitation of diplomats and laid it down that they should only accept invitations from ambassadors/high commissioners or acting heads of missions.

He was also strict about ministers and MPs accepting invitations to visit foreign countries or accepting gifts etc from them. That, as was well known, is a diplomatic way of winning friends and influencing policymakers and lawmakers, a practice which is highly appreciated by our MPs and is vigorously pursued today.

When JR Jayewardene came to power in 1977 with that massive majority, he laid down rules for his ministers, MPs and party supporters holding public office. As president, he ordered that only one cabinet minister attends “National Day” diplomatic receptions.

To ensure that, a ‘Minister of the Month’ was selected from the cabinet of ministers and it was he who represented the government for that month.

So, ministers who appreciated a tipple of duty-free whiskey in the evening, often rued the month they had to represent the government at receptions where no liquour was served as the national policy of the celebrating countries. Sadly, for the minister, such occasions could come twice or three times a month.

That was not all. He forbade UNP members holding high public office from accepting invitations and attending national day receptions though this rule began to wane with time and I had occasion to see some university colleagues of mine and other friends sipping a drink or two in the more secluded spaces of the reception hall.

When Karu Jayasuriya was The Speaker during the Yahapalana government, he worked hard to have a code of conduct for MPs and finally managed to have parliament approve it somewhere around March 2018.

How much MPs cared for the code which they themselves accepted and agreed to respect, was vividly captured on TV when two or three days of violence erupted in the House as members clashed, the Speaker almost suffered a physical attack and absolute bedlam prevailed with even chilli powder weaponised and copies of the Constitution (which MPs swore to honour and protect), the Holy Bible and Hansard served as missiles as Sri Lanka entered the space war.

Limited space does not allow a more detailed recital of those days of valour and gory or of the intrinsic elements of the Code, but suffice it to say that all these codes and stringent laws seem like wasted paper and effort to judge by the respect with which they are treated.

More importantly, corruption and malfeasance continued, codes or not.

The world knows that corruption is the bane of Sri Lanka and that canker runs from top to bottom. Integrity in governance has degenerated so much that it has reached the stage when the IMF has to step in to dictate terms on how to eliminate corruption vulnerabilities and set standards for the declaration of assets from the highest levels of the governance structure on a designated website in line with the recent Anti-Corruption Act. The IMF wants it done by April 2024.

This follows Asia’s first Governance Diagnostic containing 16 recommendations. But the declaration of assets and liabilities by ministers, MPs and public officials is not new.

Shortly after the IMF released its report, Harsha de Silva MP told parliament that of the current crop of 225 MPs, only 12 had declared their assets to the Speaker as the law requires them to do.

The important question is why the then Secretary General of Parliament and the Speaker have done little or nothing to ensure that MPs abide by the laws that they themselves make. What was the Secretary General doing and what was the Speaker, who should be the recipient of those declarations doing, besides appointing five of his family members to official positions in his office at public expense?

Was this not under the same Secretary-General that parliament officials refused to disclose to the Sunday Times the educational qualifications of MPs, ludicrously claiming that it encroached on the members’ privacy, not to mention how many members had failed to declare their assets?

That is until an alert and determined Commission on the Right to Information (RTI) asserted its independence and ordered the release of that information. And now the same Dhammika Dasanayake is appointed as Secretary to the Constitutional Council whereas these last years the secretary-general of parliament acted in that capacity.

So why this sudden decision to change the status quo and recommend a salary of Rs 500,000 which the cabinet reportedly sensibly rejected? Is this another instance of cronyism that the
Sri Lankan populace has come to despise and even the IMF points a finger at as another obstacle to good, clean and incorruptible governance?

In a much-needed effort to clean up parliament, President Wickremesinghe set up a committee to draft an Independent Parliament Standards Authority (IPSA).

Talking to this newspaper Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said that a key objective is to ensure, credibility, accountability and the professionalism of MPs and “thereby enhancing public trust in parliament.”

Besides the Justice Minister’s unbounded optimism, he expects this to “enhance public trust.” Surely he knows that to enhance there must first be public trust in that institution. That is not what one saw when the mass public protests last year called for 225 MPs to quit and new elections to be held to replace them in parliament.

It was not to condemn all MPs, but the only way then to make a clean sweep though it meant throwing the baby with the bath water.

Another function of the Standards Authority is “taking disciplinary action against MPs after an inquiry by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Ethics and Privileges, subject to the approval of parliament, according to Minister Rajapakshe.

This is a serious flaw and the point at which politics intrudes, making the so-called Independent Authoriy, just so-called.

For lack of space perhaps this can be discussed when the draft Bill is made public and a look at other countries where concrete measures are taken to preserve and safeguard the independence of the institution dealing with inquiries against violations of ethics and other indiscretions of elected members.

(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)