The Island – Editorial
Sports Minister C. B. Ratnayake has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his recent statement about corruption in State institutions. Acting IGP N. K. Illangakoon has taken umbrage over his remark that the police are the second most corrupt in Sri Lanka, the first and the third being the education establishment and the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) respectively. Senior DIG Illangakoon demands that the allegation of corruption against the police be substantiated before any conclusions are drawn.
One is intrigued. The police do the exact obverse of what they want Minister Ratnayake to do. They hardly study anything before rushing to conclusions at the speed of light without giving two hoots about investigations and evidence. After all, that is why they are called the Sri Lanka Police! They make arrests according to their whims and fancies, unless, of course, the suspects are connected to the ruling party, bastinado them; whip them with pizzles; lock them up in hellholes (read police cells) and haul them up before courts but only four per cent of the accused so arrested, tortured and prosecuted get convicted! If the police conduct proper investigations and gather irrefutable evidence as they ask the Sports Minister to do as regards his allegation against them, the conviction rate will not remain so appallingly low. However, that is not the point we are trying to make in this comment today.
We wonder why the Acting IGP is making an issue of the minister’s allegation of corruption. We do not know the exact position of the police on the list of corrupt institutions. They may be the second, the third or even the first. In our opinion, no one is capable of beating politicians at the game of corruption.
One may argue that instead of trying to dispute their corruption ranking, the police must do their damnedest to be more and more corrupt. For, it is the corrupt that go places in this country. Take for example the SLC. In spite of the Sport’s Minister’s pronouncement that it has gone to the dogs and needs a thorough clean-up, some key office bearers of its interim committee have have stayed put!
If an institution is rank with corruption, surely those who run it must be held responsible for that sorry state of affairs, a probe conducted and punishment meted out. The reappointment of the cricket interim committee bigwigs with no questions asked obviously on orders from on high has let the minister with egg on his face. It has also made a mockery of the government’s battle against corruption.
A few days after the conclusion of the war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa making his V-Day speech, declared war on corruption. He said now that the war was over he would mobilise his government, the State machinery and the people for weeding out corruption. We thought the government meant business and would go the whole hog to eliminate corruption from our midst the way it had defeated terrorism. We expected many heads to roll in State institutions notorious for corruption.
But nothing of the sort happened. Worse, one year on, the interim committee of the SLC, which the Sports Minister himself has accused of being the third most corrupt institution on this blessed isle, has been reappointed without any investigation into the ministerial allegations! So much for the government’s much advertised war on corruption!
Where corruption is bliss, ’tis folly to be honest! Long live the corrupt!