Sunday Times: Sri Lanka: Sunday,
January 29, 2017.
Next weekend,
Sri Lanka marks its 69th anniversary of Independence. There is, no doubt, much
to celebrate, none more significant than the fact that the citizenry are a free
people, and masters of their own destiny.
Many still
say that Sri Lanka’s freedom was achieved without a struggle; that it was a by-product
of India’s freedom struggle and World War II that weakened the British Empire
which was grateful to its subjects (now the Commonwealth) who fought
shoulder-to-shoulder with them to defeat Nazi Germany and that such an easy
path to Independence is never fully appreciated by the people. That is not
entirely so. Sri Lanka had its own struggles in 400 years of colonial
domination.
Ecently, the
President re-gazetted the names of several Kandyan ‘heroes’ who were termed
‘traitors’ by the British rulers. 1915 saw race riots triggered by the ‘Divide
and Rule’ policy that is still perpetrated by Western powers in relatively
newly independent nation-states. This is part and parcel of neo-colonialism.
Many advances
have taken place since Independence in 1948, especially in the health and
education fields. The political leaders of the newly sovereign Sri Lanka felt
the long oppressed people deserved these benefits, but the growing welfare
state, with free rice also given to the people, ran up big bills that had to be
paid for these giveaways.
Exports did
not bring in sufficient funds and today Sri Lanka, like many other economically
developing countries, has the dubious distinction of balancing most of its
budget with the remittances of exported labour. Funds for infrastructure
development have had to be obtained through foreign loans, riddled with
corruption allegations that have now reached epic proportions building up to a
debt trap that is going to implode in 2019 when the loans have to be paid back.
This week’s Parliamentary debate on the Central Bank scandal of 2015 and 2016
is a compelling story of our times. The debate itself was a cacophony of
accusations across the floor of the House, but the overall theme that political
leaders are corrupt, was crystal clear.
The
Opposition Leader arguably made the best contribution of the day saying that
all Governments, past and present, defend corruption. If only he can speak out
more on national affairs other than confining himself to regional matters. His simple
message was that both the SLFP and the UNP that have ruled this country
alternatively since 1948 and are now ruling together accuse each other but
protect rogues, and that the people were getting sick of them. More so, he
said, democracy was at stake with this kind of behaviour by both mainstream
parties.
Corruption is
endemic in Sri Lanka, trickling down from the Cabinet of Ministers to the
traffic cop. Bloomberg, the world renowned economic data company, this week
ranked Sri Lanka as one of the highest risk countries for foreign investors
based on economic, financial and political risks. This, when the country is
desperately trying to attract foreign investment.
As Sri Lanka celebrates its 69th year of
Freedom, it is time the political leaders re-evaluate and re-calibrate their
roles and ensures their tattered credibility is restored, both locally and
overseas and that this is not a country where politics and political patronage
is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Lanka’s
‘tryst with its (RTI) destiny’
It may be a
forgivable overreach in dramatic flair, but to paraphrase independent India’s
first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s stirring words to the Indian
Constituent Assembly on the eve of shaking off colonial fetters in 1947, Sri
Lanka’s ‘tryst with its (RTI) destiny’ will occur on Friday. This is when the
Right to Information Act, No 12 of 2016 becomes operative to all Public
Authorities on February 3, 2017, the day before we celebrate the 69th year of
our own Independence.
In this case,
the long established fetters that Sri Lanka hopes to shake off will be the
decades of stubborn bureaucracy in denying information to our citizens.
Typically, these denials range from plundered monies in the construction of
village roads to multi-millions squandered in sophisticated high finance deals,
from embarrassing Government mistakes being hidden as ‘official secrets’ to a
complainant in a local police station and much more.
As Sri Lanka
sinks to a morass of ‘politics as usual’, the RTI Act is unquestionably a
signal exception to that cheerless record though late, at least it is one
election promise that the National Unity Government has fulfilled.
This was a
law that was relatively easy to draft because much of the groundwork had
already been done with the draft Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill of 2004
under the then and present Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s watch. If that
Bill had not been callously brushed aside by Presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga
and Mahinda Rajapaksa as it posed an obstacle for politicians to rob public
money, we would have had an RTI Act at the same time as others in the region.
Though the
media spearheaded Sri Lanka’s RTI Act, this is a law for all citizens, not only
journalists. Ranked high on the index of RTI legislation internationally, it
ensures an independent RTI Commission tasked with monitoring RTI compliance and
adjudicating on disputes. There has been a pitiful lack of time to prepare
Rules and fine-tune Regulations to give effect to the Act as the Commission
became functional just over a month ago though we are made to understand that
these duties have been complied with. The ball is now in the court of the
implementing agency, the Ministry of Mass Media, which has to gazette these
Rules and Regulations.
The country
will be closely watching as to how the RTI Commission is enabled by the
Government to function properly. We must not forget Sri Lanka’s first National
Police Commission supposed to be unique in the region. Functioning with
integrity, it was gradually undermined by politicians even before the 18th
Amendment put paid to all independent commissions. Even though the 19th
Amendment restored the status quo to some extent, the Police Commission remains
a shadow of its original self. This is not encouraging. The Government cannot
set up commissions, boast to the world about this and then starve such bodies
of adequate resources, refuse to financially support the commissioners or
deprive them of the capacity to function independently. That will be a farce
and worse, a betrayal of all the peoples’ struggles. Lanka’s ‘RTI destiny’ will
finally be measured only by the people’s wise and strong use of their right to
know. Public servants, the media and the citizenry remain to be properly
educated about the force of RTI which, in other countries, has brought corrupt
politicians to account. We witness the agonising wait to bring these corrupt
politicians to book partly due to the secrecy associated with the workings of
the government which permitted Presidents, PMs and Ministers and bureaucrats to
escape with impunity the basic public responsibilities they owe to the people
they represent.
Hopefully,
the RTI Act a great and long overdue gift to the people will show us the way,