Lawyers and transparency activists monitoring Sri Lanka’s state banking sector have welcomed two significant decisions of the Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka bringing key state banks, the Bank of Ceylon and the Peoples Bank, under the Right to Information (RTI) microscope to account for use of state funds to, among others, politically favoured persons.

Last week, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the People’s Bank challenging a decision of the Commission directing to release info on moneys spent on a Buddhist religious event by its Anuradhapura branch in 2002 when a past employee of the Bank demanded to know the amount of money and to whom the payments had been made, alleging large scale irregularities.

The People’s Bank had not released the information saying that the names of the persons to whom the money had been paid would be publicised, citing Section 5(1)(a) of the Right to Information Act (‘personal information’). The RTI Commission had refused to accept this position, ordering the Bank to release the details. The Bank had then appealed against the Commission order to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the Commission that the release was warranted under the RTI Act with a two member judge Bench pointing out that, ‘the disclosure of a name or the identity of an institution’ to whom/which public funds are paid, ‘does not in itself, constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy of such third party.’

The Court said that, ‘such information relates directly to the use of public resources, which is inherently subject to public scrutiny. Public institutions operate under the principle of accountability and the expenditure should be transparent to ensure that they adhere to legal, ethical, and financial standards’ (per Justice MCBS Morais for himself and Justice R Gurusinghe, decision of November 26th 2024). In what activists say is a first, the Court also directed costs of Rs 100,000/= to be paid by the Bank in an indication that the Court will not treat frivolous appeals lightly.

Some weeks earlier, responding to an appeal filed by an anti-corruption movement (the Peoples Movement Against Corruption), the RTI Commission directed the Bank of Ceylon to disclose detailed information regarding the manner in which the Bank had awarded contracts to a former Chairman’s company, including the installation of ATM machines installed at the PA from the Informatics company which was a family owned company of the former Chairman (Gamini Wickremesinghe) from 2009-2012.

Other information directed to be released related to the question as to whether relevant tender procedures had been followed and what kind of loans and overdrafts granted to the company with the Commission dismissing the stand of the BOC that the information was not to be found.

The BOC has been given time till  31^st December 2024 to release the information with the RTI Commission warning that if the information is not released, prosecution will be launched in the Magistrate’s Court. This is an important development in exposing the conflicts of interests and connections between the country’s state banking sector and politically favoured persons, anti-corruption activists told the Colombo Telegraph.    

Other information directed to be released related to the question as to whether relevant tender procedures had been followed and what kind of loans and overdrafts granted to the company with the Commission dismissing the stand of the BOC that the information was not to be found. The Commission said that, ‘In the respective years asked for, the PA has declined to answer the connected question as to how many of these machines were purchased from the company in question, Informatics in that regard. We are in agreement with the submission of the Appellant that the fact of the said purchase of these machines from the company in question is borne out by the Annual Reports of the PA in the years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.