Where are the big fish?

By N Sathiya Moorthy

The Colombo High has sentenced former Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage to 20 years RI and former Sathosa Chairman Nalin Fernando to 25 years RI, for having caused LKR 53- million loss in the procurement of carom boards and checker boards for sports clubs in the run-up to the 2015 presidential elections. Of course, the two will now prefer appeals, and that would take its own course before a final situation emerges.

By itself, the loss to the government is not big compared to what the people expected the JVP-NPP rulers to ‘expose’, once in power. Nor did the convicted two belong(ed) to the ruling elite in the Mahinda Rajapaksa dispensation at the time. It is another matter that a local leader of the Opposition SJB has claimed credit for the conviction of the two, saying that the case flowed from his police complaint in the matter.

Without referring to this case or any other, President Anura Kumara Disanayake has since underscored his ‘unwavering commitment to fulfilling my fundamental responsibility of elevating Sri Lanka’s international standing  as a well-governed and law-abiding nation’.  Much loaded than is visible, and that raises fundamental questions about the future of governance in this country – but too early for a discourse.

In the immediate context, it raises the question as to the ‘big fish-es’ that the leadership of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake promised to net in – or, that was the expectation of the people who voted him to power and gave his JVP-NPP combine more than a two-thirds majority in the twin-polls of the previous year.

Of course, it did not (have to) stop with the Rajapaksa regimes — of Mahinda, 2005-15 and Gota, 2019-22. In between, you had the yahapalayana dispensation of President Maithripala Sirisena, 2015-19, of which future President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2019-22, was Prime Minister. Going by the way the present leadership has pushed itself to a corner in administrative matters, and given their record still as a ‘clean government’, much of their activities seem destined to be related to anti-corruption drive of whatever kind possible.

The next big question is this: Where are the big fish or fishes? Who are they and what will they be charged with? Media and social media speculation over the past several years, almost two decades has centred on every big transaction involving past governments. To be fair to the critics of those dispensation, former Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, first over a ‘drug scam’ and now for enriching himself through fake-appointments in his ministry and drawing their salaries accordingly.

Again, the cases would take their time to real the final stage. For now however Wimal Weerawansa has declared that a total of 40 former MPs, including himself, would be arrested soon, obviously / possibly under corruption charges. Granting that Weerawansa’s information is accurate, most on the top-rung of political administration in the past were MPs in their time – and thus qualify to be in his list of 40. As if to respond to Weerawansa, a government minister has put the figure at 20.

Explanations, excuses

But the government leaders need to remember that their honeymoon with the voter is over, and the results of the local council elections was only an expression of the same. They are back to their positions on the eve of the presidential poll, and it will require Herculean efforts for the ruling JVP-NPP combine to regain the lost glory, or was it a halo?

How to get them back there would be Team Anura’s strategy between now and the long-pending Provincial Council elections. To be precise, they for their part would like to delay the nine PC polls until the party and combine are ready for the same. Provided no one moves the Judiciary as in the case of the local council elections under the previous Wickremesinghe regime, and the court too takes a lenient view of the present government’s explanations / excuses.

That will all require the capture of big fish, rather fishes over a short-term, whatever the courts may do with them later on. It will but be a perception war, fought through the media / social media, which would also be as one-sided as can be.

The problem still would be to ‘fix’ Sajith Premadasa, who thankfully for himself, was not in any great coveted position throughout the past decades, as the four former Prime Ministers and the kin of some of them. It may be easy for the government to discredit the rest, but the non-committed vote-shares that each one of them might have garnered in the past would not come the Dissanayake way. They could then travel towards Premadasa and the SJB combine.

It would then require a different effort, digging deeper, if not a new strategy, for the JVP combine. For, there should be no doubt that Team Dissanayake has lost the plot with the local council elections. They will have to revive the presidential poll spirit, which again did not mean much in terms of crossing the half-way mark.

National commitment

Of course, a corruption-free administration is a sine quo non for good governance in every part of the world, in every nation. But not all nations are lucky. In Sri Lanka’s case, it is also a national commitment for obtaining IMF loan.

Even recently, the Japanese envoy reiterated past claims about the prevalence of unacceptable levels of corruption in the Colombo dispensation over the previous years. From the very conceptualisation of the Hambantota Port work and long before it materialised, there used to be rumours in the corridors of power how the ‘incidental expenses’ were economically unsustainable and politically un-explainable for most national governments and their big-ticket public and private sector investors.

All of it lead to questions more about the future than the past. Yes, bringing the corrupt political-bureaucrat nexus to book is one thing. Sending the fear of god down every Sri Lankan spine is another. But to lay down inconvertible rules and procedures – and see that they work – is another thing altogether. It requires not only commitment but also efficiency, which, it is feared, is still in short supply in this government.

The leadership cannot be blamed, at least up to a point. They are new to the job, and they are all conscious about the fact and also the resultant pitfalls. Yet, where loyalty should be a part of the process, it seems to be the only yardstick in the choice of persona for the job. There are glaring hits and misses, which is already telling upon the government’s functioning.

Barring ministers from speaking to the media or to others is not a solution. It only stifles the atmosphere and creates a kind of in-breeding that is not good for a democracy, and more so, for the elected rulers, who won’t get the true picture until it became too late. Choosing the right men for the right job – even where it may require some major replacements and reshuffle – is the trick.

Yet, the President himself better end the speculation about the imminent changes in his Cabinet, starting with Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya. Other senior ministers, as if speaking for Dissanayake, have said it, but neither the President, nor the Prime Minister, has opened his/her mouth.

Any dissensions at that level, for the JVP-NPP means a lot in terms of procedural processes that the two are yet to sort out to each other’s full satisfaction. And any anti-corruption drive in the background of such rumours would only be seen as a diversionary tactic. If so, it may not work the way intended.

Dissanayake did not master the art of governance or balancing between power-centres when he came to power. He has learnt some in the past months and should not hesitate to implement what he has learnt – provided it worked. If he is still doubtful about the results of such personnel changes, especially at the level of the top bureaucracy, Democracy will not have the time and patience, either, to learn on the job, and eternally so!

(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)