Sri Lanka is miserably failing to restore the valiant democratic principles to create ‘good governance’ which can be achieved if there is a will and commitment by the authorities. This was clearly the view that emerged at a lively public discussion on ‘Assets Declaration as an Anti-Corruption Tool’ organised by Transparency International Sri Lanka and [...]

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Sri Lanka has failed in good governance promises

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Sri Lanka is miserably failing to restore the valiant democratic principles to create ‘good governance’ which can be achieved if there is a will and commitment by the authorities. This was clearly the view that emerged at a lively public discussion on ‘Assets Declaration as an Anti-Corruption Tool’ organised by Transparency International Sri Lanka and held at the BMICH last week.

The forum noted that corruption is the root cause for the deterioration of democratic principles that failed to establish good governance policies and actions.

At the discussion it came to light that out of the 225 parliamentarians only 10 of them have submitted their Assets and Liabilities Declaration.

This was duly acknowledged at the event and of these 10 MPs, five of them participated in this discussion. They were Tharaka Baalasuriya, Vidura Wickramanayake, Dr.Harsha de Silva, Eran Wickramaratne and Prof. Ashu Marasinghe.

It was also clear that the legislature itself could be seen as an obstacle to achieve the desired objectives of the law pertaining to this otherwise ‘unique’ piece of legislation. Though the declarations are obtained by the Elections Commission as per the law, they are kept ‘safe’ and seemingly withheld from entering the public domain. The matter was adequately discussed and was pointed out that the law was introduced in 1975.

During the discussion, M.A. Mohamed, a former Commissioner General of the Elections Commission, indicated that though this law was introduced in 1975, Section 1 to 74 of that law was amended in 1992 and in that amendment, though the law provided that any person after paying a fee could obtain copies of this declaration, under Section 8 (1) of the amended law it provides that though one can obtain copies of the declaration, he or she is prohibited to publicise it and if so published the person is liable to commit a punishable offence.

Though the information must have to be in the public domain, this piece of draconian amendment curtails it getting into the public eye – a vitally important democratic principle as discussed.

He said that the hands of the Elections Commission are tied by that piece of amendment and once if it is removed then everything is clear to open the public eye to this vital information.

Manjula Gajanayake, National Coordinator, Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), said that Transparency International called for the Declarations of the President and the Prime Minister through the Commission on the Right to Information and it was referred to courts and this request is pending there. He said that no former Presidents have submitted their declarations.

He said that when he requested, he had received the Assets and Liabilities Declaration of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi.

Maheshi Herat, Manager, Research and Policy, Transparency International, said that not only MPs and candidates but according to the law there are many who have to submit the Assets Declarations other than the ordinary public.

She said that apart from MPs and Ministers, top notch public officials, trade union leaders, high officials of state corporations and high officials of companies that have major government shares and even the owners of newspapers and those on the editorial board are liable to submit these declarations.

Some of the parliamentarians also contributed their share of discussion on the issue. Some of them pointed out that there is a reluctance of declaring their assets and particularly them getting publicised since when they have large assets, gems and jewellery of their spouses and this information gets into the public domain, they would be in danger of being attacked and robbed by criminals.

Mr. Balasuriya, in response to a query from the audience about the justification of withholding the assets declaration information from the public, said that with regard to the issue of justification there are a lot of practical problems as it involve the political culture of the era.

He said that when the public is aware of their wealth, this would arouse many asking for donations for Vesak, dansalas and many other social events and most serious would be the awakening of the burglars and robbers to plunder these wealth, and despite the security his residence was once burgled.

He said there was a need for a new approach on the issue and suggested that the Declarations could be referred to an independent institution like the Bribery Commission or the Auditor-General.

He drew the attention of the forum that there are 1.4 million public servants and if the Declarations of 25,000 of them are to be investigated, the investigators would have to be highly qualified and paid accordingly. The two hour long session also discussed many important aspects of this subject.

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