TISL Executive Director elect, Dr Wijaya Jayatilaka says that the TI team will address the underlying causes of corruption and poor governance in an effective, sustained and result-oriented manner.
“It will be a bit unbecoming to promise what I will do and what I will deliver. We do not live in the ‘promised land’ bur definitely in a land of promises, ever so often made and broken and often in the air and sadly not realized,” he said in his acceptance speech at the function held at HNB Towers recently.
Reminding that TISL has the vision of ‘making Sri Lanka a nation with integrity’, he said that its core business is to eliminate corruption and increase integrity. Human history can be seen as a struggle between those who tried to do good and those who did not and the tension affected the lives of the people, he said. “Strengthening integrity and eliminating corruption or breach of public trust is a struggle that goes as far back as human history could.”
Going back in history, he said that the earliest guidelines of good governance and effective just leadership were written and practiced many centuries back in Asia. “Even then there was a clear awareness of poor governance and possible breach of public trust. First, if there were no proper checks and balances in governance structures and second if those holding high office of leaders did not have the required attitudes, aptitude and skills, there will not be progress. So, anti- corruption work predates modern Western civilization – a fact in history ironically not known to some leaders we have elected to high office.”
He referred to the days of the first Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta in the 3rd century BC when Chanakya who was adviser and prime minister said that good governance and stability go hand in hand. According to him, there is stability if rulers are responsive, responsible, accountable, removable and recallable. Otherwise there would be instability. Creation of the nation state combining several kingdoms and states for the first time was done under his thinking.
As for the present day, he stressed on the need to develop a more grounded knowledge base that gives meaning to the work in integrity and eliminating corruption that is acceptable and relates well with the feelings, values and beliefs of the 20 million people of the country. The discovery, synthesis and sharing of this knowledge is fundamentally important.
Stating that his new task is a challenging opportunity for himself as well the TISL team and the partners TISL works with, he emphasized the need to get the act together and forge the path ahead with confidence, well informed evidence based and with strong alliances that will provide the strategic strength to forge ahead. “Partnerships across the divides, working with friends and likeminded persons with a shared vision will be pursued,” he said.