A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, February 28, 2016
Get moving on the RTI Act
We
do understand the need to prosecute those who are found to have
indulged in financial fraud, but what is more important in the long run
is to put in place a system that makes fraud difficult or impossible. In
the case of the former ‘need’ the exercise cannot be selective.
( February 28, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When
the campaign staff of Maithripala Sirisena started articulating the
when-elected plans, neither he nor his spokespersons were taken
seriously. It’s not their fault. Election-time, after all, is all about
promises, never mind their doability. How many times, for example, have
we heard the slogan, ‘I will abolish the executive presidency if
elected’?
The fact that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe dispensation got the 19th
Amendment passed, even with its flaws, was therefore a remarkable and
happy departure from past practices pertaining to manifestos and their
implementation. No one can be faulted therefore for hoping that the rest
of the promised reforms would get implemented, although about 300 days
have passed since the end-date of the 100 Day Programme came and went.
It wasn’t going to be easy of course. First, there was the General
Election. That sent everything to the back burner. Then there was the
period of limbo when those in power couldn’t name a cabinet. The daily
grind of governing can also get in the way of making laws. We had the
case of a little girl being raped and murdered, we had the issue of the
National Anthem being sung in Tamil, we had a debate about how ‘Danno
Budunge’ should be sung and now we have ECTA.
Some of the distractions are not of the government’s own making, but
some certainly are. It makes sense politically. Who, after all, talks of
the famous ‘100 Days’ now? It is almost a year since Maithripala
Sirisena and almost all the SLFP high rankers spoke at a rally pledging
to put the entire elections system right, but is there any talk of the
20th Amendment now? Political expediency is not what the
Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government promised us, however.
Today we are offered the media-bytes of impending arrests, arrests and
promises of further action. This might keep the vociferously
anti-Rajapaksa supporters of the government happy and annoy those on the
other side, but righting wrongs is not only about punishing wrongdoers.
It is about correcting the flaws of the system.
We are still in the early days of the independent commissions. There is a
woeful absence of information about how these entities operate. It will
take time and we should be patient. However, there’s nothing to stop
the government from going ahead with complementing reforms, in
particular getting busy with the Right to Information Act.
The draft was ready more than 10 months ago. The input of all relevant
sections of society was obtained before it was put together. And yet,
apart from the odd ‘we will do it soon,’ there’s no sign of it getting
done.
Since anti-corruption was picked as a veritable pay-off line by the
Sirisena campaign and has been retained as a ‘must-say’ in the rhetoric
of this government, one would have thought the Right to Information Act
would have been treated as a matter of priority. Given the fascination
that the government and its defenders demonstrate about the need to be
squeaky clean with money, why is this important weapon against financial
wrongdoing being constantly footnoted?
The Right to Information Act would, over time and with regular
reference, create a more alert and pro-active citizenry. It would put
politicians tempted to bend rule or even brazenly rob on the back foot.
They’d be forced to think twice before doing ‘what was always done and
what every did and worse, were expected to do’.
And it’s not just the politicians and others in the public sphere that
would have to be careful. A comprehensive RTI Act would cover other
organisations too. Each and every entity obtaining money from the
government, foreign governments or international organizations would be
open to scrutiny. This is the case in the RTI Acts of Bangladesh, Nepal,
Indonesia and South Africa.
A few days ago the Minister of National Co-existence, Dialogue and
Official Languages, Mano Ganesan told Parliament that “the government
had not received financial statements from NGOs in respect of funds
received from overseas donors since 2000, barring the period 2011-2013.”
Minister Ganesan revealed that “NGOs had received Rs. 13.9 bn (Rs
13,926,619,942) in 2011, Rs. 11. 4 bn (Rs.11,488,308,761) in 2012 and
Rs. 10.8 bn (Rs.10,840,293,929) in 2013”. If these are typical figures
for a year, we are talking about a figure in the region of staggering Rs
150 billion going unreported.
Minister Ganesan would no doubt take steps to find out who received
money, how much money was received and how the money was spent.
President Sirisena and his supporters, including Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe pledged to put things in order. We do understand the need
to prosecute those who are found to have indulged in financial fraud,
but what is more important in the long run is to put in place a system
that makes fraud difficult or impossible. In the case of the former
‘need’ the exercise cannot be selective. Minister Ganesan will be naming
names or should be. In the case of the latter ‘need’ then the RTI has
to be seen as one of the most important instruments of prevention,
provided of course that the draft and the final document curtain
relevance and limit it to state entities and individuals therein.
In light of all this, perhaps it is high time that the President and
Prime Minister move the forces they command to get the RTI Act back on
track.
( Manik de Silva is the Chief Editor of the Sunday Island, where this piece originally appeared)