Colombo International – A Rogue Airport ?

by Ruwantissa Abeyratne
( January 28, 2015, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) It was appalling to read a news item in this newspaper of 25 January under the caption: “Sri Lanka: Sex Mafias At The Airport” which said: “News 1st, the local television channel in Sri Lanka, was provided with footage that shows extortion that takes place at the Bandaranaike International Airport, and also the harassing of passengers. The attached video shows the final gate for boarding, for passengers at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. After being checked and cleared for travel, passengers enter the boarding area through this gate. If officers at this area are suspicions of any passenger, the passenger is escorted to a room within the premises and is inspected. The inspection takes place with the passenger in question being requested to strip down. According to Airport Security, for such an inspection, it takes a minimum of ten minutes. Yet, some passengers are escorted to this room for inspection, sometimes for absurd reasons and are released within seconds. This situation has led to suspicions of alleged money extortion taking place inside this inspection room. The footage also shows a group of security officers dressed in civil attire extorting money from a passenger….It is alleged that sexual harassment also takes place within the airport”.
If this is true, Sri Lankan aviation is in distinguished company.
The Independent of 25 January 2015 carried an article written by Mark Gould on 4 August 1998 on the death of Siraj Miah, a Bangladeshi businessman, at the airport in Dhaka. Mr Miah lived in Northeast London and had arrived in Bangladesh for a vacation with his family who lived in Bangla Desh. Apparently, Mr. Miah had been beaten to death at the airport. Gould wrote: ” Mr Miah’s death in May caused uproar among the 275,000-strong Bangladeshi community in Britain, most of whom travel frequently to and from their country of origin. It has also spotlighted rampant official corruption: at Dhaka airport there is a gang of police and customs officers who supplement their pounds 80-a-month salaries by demanding between pounds 30 and pounds 50 from returning expatriates”.

Airline passengers must not only be protected by treaty and legislation inside the aircraft but also at the airport. A most effective way to arrest this problem would be to find those in management accountable for such crimes as extortion and sexual abuse committed by their staff, while criminalizing the miscreant staff with stiff penal sanctions.

In Nigeria, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Ministry of Aviation are carrying out a joint operation to rid the airports in the country of corruption. This measure has been taken not only to ensure discipline and transparency at the entry and departure points of the country but also to encourage investors. The rationale for this determined effort is based on the acknowledged fact that if the entry point is corrupt, the visitor would have the inevitable perception of a corrupt country as a whole.
The airline passenger, both at entry into and departure from an airport is on the average, anxious, sometimes apprehensive and therefore vulnerable. He or she is at the mercy of the stentorian “official’ who could detain them on some pretext or prevent them from catching their flight unless valuable consideration or some other form of gratification is extracted. For such a person to be exploited, particularly by staff in charge of security or customs is akin to a host of vultures descending upon a child dying of starvation in the desert.
Ironically, customer service quality is one of the benchmarks of a good airport. Airports Council International – the association of airports – advocates the development of a customer service culture at its member airports and conducts a professional course for airport managers on the subject. Needless to say, corruption inevitably reduces airport service quality I have written in an earlier article that for the most part corruption reigns in the absence of an integrated system of internal supervision in the public sector and that corruption has both corrosive and toxic effects on a society. The report on Human Development in South Asia 1999 concluded: “Corruption is one of the most damaging consequences of poor governance. It undermines investment and economic growth, decreases the resources available for human development goals, deepens the extent of poverty, subverts the judicial system, and undermines the legitimacy of the state. In fact, when corruption becomes entrenched, it can devastate the entire economic, political, and social fabric of a country…corruption breeds corruption – and a failure to combat it effectively can lead to an era of entrenched corruption”.
The European Union states: “whether it takes the form of political corruption, corrupt activities committed by and with organized criminal groups, private-to-private corruption or so-called petty corruption, the abuse of power for private gain is not acceptable and has dreadful consequences. Four out of five EU citizens regard corruption as a major problem in their State. This reality highlights the need for restoring trust in the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies and calls for firm political commitment.
The operative term, as correctly used by the European Union is “political commitment”.
Airline passengers must not only be protected by treaty and legislation inside the aircraft but also at the airport. A most effective way to arrest this problem would be to find those in management accountable for such crimes as extortion and sexual abuse committed by their staff, while criminalizing the miscreant staff with stiff penal sanctions.
In this context it is heartening to note that the new minister in charge of aviation has decided to clean the Augean stables. This augurs well for the credibility of the entire nation as a people who are hospitable. If action is not taken quickly, the reputation we have earned, as voiced by His Holiness Pope Francis on his arrival in Sri Lanka: ” Sri Lanka is known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean for its natural beauty. Even more importantly, this island is known for the warmth of its people and the rich diversity of their cultural and religious traditions”, would be reduced to a mere mockery.
The author is a former senior counsel at the International Civil Aviation Organization.