Bloated fleas
Editorial-November 27, 2014
It is not only in fables that animals talk. In politics, too, they do. We saw one of them in action near the Colombo Magistrate Court the other day. However, this comment is not about barking dogs or braying donkeys in the garb of politicos but political parasites.
A ministerial potentate is reported to have put forward an absurd argument; corruption is something common in this country and if the present set of politicians in power who have made enough money is voted out the people will be the losers. For, the members of the new dispensation will go hell for leather to amass wealth at their expense, he has said.
In an Aesopian fable a fox stuck in a gully in a stream says something similar. Having failed to extricate itself and resigned itself to its fate, it turns down an offer by a smaller animal to remove the bloated fleas it is covered with. "Those parasites are now replete and if they are removed another swarm will descend on me," says the fox.
The poor fox represents the ordinary people and the politicians in power are the bloodsuckers. Does this mean the corrupt politicians who plunder public wealth for years and become filthy rich should be allowed to remain in power forever lest another set of corrupt dregs should grab state power, make up for lost time? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’! However, the solution to the problem is to launch a truly national campaign to rid the country of corruption at all levels of government as well as the public service. A tall order, no doubt, but unless the cancer of corruption which has eaten into the vitals of society is removed as a national priority progress will continue to elude us.
Sri Lanka’s campaign against corruption has been in the doldrums because it is highly politicized—nay, it has been reduced to a mere political slogan. Entrusting politicians with the task of fighting corruption is tantamount to enlisting the support of criminals to maintain law and order!
If an anti-corruption drive is to reach fruition it needs to be conducted as a social movement to heighten the awareness of the public of their rights and the benefits of good governance and mobilise the populace.
India has succeeded in doing so to some extent. Such a movement should be independent of the private sector as well because most of the captains of industry who pretend to be knights of the Garter on a mission to slay the dragon of corruption are themselves responsible for corruption in the state sector. The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has shed lights on some of those rackets including multi-million-dollar divestiture programmes.
In 1994, political parties represented in Parliament including the SLFP and the UNP voted unanimously and unflinchingly to strip the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) of powers to initiate its own probes without waiting for complaints. Politicians make common cause when their interests are threatened. So much for their contribution to the country’s anti-corruption drive!
During elections politicians vow to eliminate corruption and vilify their rivals. Let them be urged to put their own house in order before being critical of others. They ought to declare the amounts of funds they raise for their polls campaigns and reveal the sources of funding so that the people will know who is backing them. Transparency is an effective antidote to corruption.
