The Facilitators Of Corruption & The Village Farmers’ Tale

By Chandra Jayaratne –December 10 2017

If the Fence, the Bund, the Mud, the Water and the Fertilizers, All Start Eating the Paddy! O God to whom Can the Farmer Complain?

Our Wake Up: The Village Farmers’ Tale

“Wetath, Niyarath, Goyam Ka Num, Kaata Pavasami Eh Amaruwa” is a commonly used saying of the village farmers. This saying adapted with the extension to read as “If the Fence, the Bund, the Mud, the Water and the Fertilizers, All Start Eating the Paddy! O God to whom Can the Farmers Complain?” is an apt phraseology to describe the unfortunate position of the Sri Lanka citizenry are facing today – the ninth of December 2017, the International Anti-corruption day.

The UNDP Resident Co-ordinator’s message on 9^th December 2009 read “No country is immune from corruption, and with economies larger and ever more intertwined, the potential risks and costs of corruption are increasing. It is for this reason that the member states of the United Nations came together and adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) through resolution 58/4 of 31 October 2003.

Sri Lanka was the first country in Asia to sign the Convention, which today has 141 State Parties. It’s the fastest ratified international treaty ever and it clearly demonstrates a global consensus on what countries should do to prevent and criminalize corruption, to improve international cooperation in combating corruption, and to recover assets. Many consider it a revolutionary step in international criminal law, a groundbreaking and innovative tool to promote good governance.”

Much water and very much more of corruption, systems abuse, policy capture corruption, bribery, money laundering, and illegal transfer of state property, have been witnessed in our society over the last decade. Opportunities have existed throughout this period for criminal elements to engage in many arrangements for concealing, disguising, conversion, transfer of criminal property or terrorism linked financing: instead of such windows being closed and controlled, in fact even new windows have been opened ( an example is the decriminalization of the misuse of foreign exchange and making foreign exchange related money laundering not a predicate offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act) and the culprits allowed to get away scot free, at times mocking at the law enforcement officials and good governance activists.

The Facilitators Of Corruption

The Fence, the Bund, the Mud, the Water and the Fertilizers, Eating the Paddy are none other than the Politicians/Legislators, the Executive Arm of Governance, the Professional, Business Persons, and the Civil Society (including religious leaders and the media). Their actions and inactions over the last decade, especially the appalling silence of so called good men and women of our society,have led to the state of affairs we are in now. Their present attitudes /actions and their future commitments, do not give us citizenry any hope of Sri Lanka being a corruption, nepotism and waste free nation in the years to come.

Where Are We? And From Where Have We Come From?

The Basel Anti Money Laundering Index measures the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing of countries based on publicly available sources. A total of 14 indicators dealing with Anti Money Laundering / Combating Financing of Terrorism regulations, corruption, financial standards, political disclosure and the rule of law are aggregated into one overall risk score.

In terms of this publication[1], Sri Lanka is ranked in 2017 as the worst 25^th Nation in the league.
The Transparency International Corruption Perception 2016 Index[2] placed Sri Lanka in the 95^th position out of 176 Countries. In 2009, Sri Lanka was 97^th out of 180 countries and in 2005 Sri Lanka was 78^th out of 158 countries. Sri Lanka’s relative ranking does not appear to have radically changed over the period 2005 to 2016 though under the baton of two regimes with distinctly differing core commitments.

The ranking of 88 (98) Developing Countries according to size of the Shadow Economy estimated by the World Bank[3] for the period 1999 to 2006 shows an average size of the shadow economy at 44% and places Sri Lanka at the 70^th( 73^rd) positions. The data set of an earlier academic study conducted over three distinct separate periods, when connected in a graph and extended brings the current estimate of Sri Lanka’s shadow economy to be well over 55%.

Sri Lankan customs have seized six shipments of high-purity South American cocaine in 14 months; including Asia’s largest-ever haul of the drug in December, at its main port.”Sri Lanka is becoming a hub for cocaine as it is a risk-free location with less legal restrictions,” a top police official who is aware of investigations into the smuggling told Reuters this week[4].

All of the above indicators support the hypothesis that the five stakeholders identified earlier have continued to eat the paddy over the last decade and more. This is an appalling state of affairs as it is even despite the election of a good governance committed regime in 2015.

Looking Back At The Role Of The Key Driver Stakeholders

The Politicians of all parties appear united and of one mind to ensure that those in power exercise their authority and decision making capacity to advance the personal interests of themselves, their families, network cronies, and also their political parties and succession within such parties. The leaders of the political parties have structured the organization and decision making within the political parties to assure dictatorial and unbridled power vesting in the respective leaders. These public institutions thus lack inner party democracy that they vouch to uphold at a national level. The most tragic revelation is that even when out of power and severely challenged and pursued by the law enforcement authorities and the judiciary, these politicians find the unseen hands of support to evade the application of the rule of law and justice.