Nihal in international efforts to combat fraud, corruption

Business and management consultant Nihal Sri Ameresekere, often in the forefront of prominently exposing several major cases of corruption, abuse of power and financial mismanagement in government which include its privatization endeavours, is currently articipating in the First Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of the Anti-Corruption Authorities in Beijing, China.

The objective of the conference is to develop and consolidate international co-operation for the effective implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. A statement issued by Ameresekera’s office says that among the cases exposed by him are the ‘Hilton’ case, the unprecedented blanket ‘tax’ amnesty and the non-remittance of a substantial sum of export proceeds.
On September 3-10 this year, he also participated in the prestigious International Symposium on Economic Crime at Jesus College, Cambridge University, UK, which in pursuance of the strong new initiatives being taken collectively by the international community, focused on combating terrorism by monitoring suspicious financial transactions while also monitoring fraud and corruption by ‘politically exposed persons’. As a Member of the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management, Washington, DC, he also participated at the Annual Conference on May 8-12 this year in Miami, Florida, US, where the focus was on new international developments in government financial management.

“With corruption and abuse of power being major issues in this country, contributing in a significant manner to poor governance and poverty while also impacting negatively on our competitiveness, it is salutary that the country is being linked to global institutions and developments to address these scourges. This empowering is particularly relevant in the context of the current scandals rocking this country which include alleged fraud in uncollected government revenue running into billions of rupees and the alleged shocking professional misconduct and unethical practice involving the local affiliates of two key international audit firms in regard to one of Sri Lanka’s largest and controversial privatization exercises,” the statement said.