By Lalith Dhammika Mendis –

Lalith Dhammika Mendis

AKD’s spectacular accession to power

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s spectacular rise to the zenith of public office marks a watershed event in the annals of post-independent politics in Sri Lanka (SL). His ascendence to presidency saw little over 42% of the votes cast being secured at the recent presidential election, representing a quantum leap from the 3% vote secured at the last presidential poll. His stellar performance defied the conventional wisdom of rival political pundits who discounted that mass turnouts at NPP rallies never translate into tangible votes. The winning vote intelligibly demonstrated people’s ire and extreme abhorrence at longstanding self-serving political skullduggery, absence of rule of law, rampant mass scale corruption sucking lifeblood of the nation and dismal lack of good governance in the conduct of public affairs that kept the nation mercilessly impoverished for decades, whilst heaping a ballooning and unbearable debt burden causing bankruptcy and precipitating an irretrievable economic catastrophe in SL.

AKD has two pronged formidable challenges to contend with in the coming days. One of the topmost priorities is “Curing the ailing public service” to rid itself of the rotting decay of corruption that has set in over the years. In fact, addressing the deep-rooted maladies in public affairs is one of the utmost priorities of the AKD’s regime. It is to ensure integrity, accountability, transparency and efficiency in the conduct of public affairs as part of the endeavors to fix the ailing economy which is at the verge of bankruptcy today. Public affairs for far too long are said to be afflicted by the malady of deep-rooted Bureaucratic Apathy/Inertia that poses tremendous impediments for economic progress.

“The looming threat of Subversion of Democracy” too is one of the twin priorities to be grappled with by the AKD regime in charting its way forward navigating the complexities of socio-economic issues lying ahead.

Bureaucratic apathy/inertia

Bureaucratic apathy/inertia (BA) in the public service has been a longstanding malady in SL that remains largely unaddressed. BA is a hazard that undermines the very essence of what public service is all about. It alludes to inclination towards perpetuating established procedures, red-tape and rigid systems irrespective of whether it is counter-productive, defeats the purpose or hampers realization of set goals. BA impedes efficient decision making and causes delays in approval processes. These impact timely completion of projects and deter investments in vital sectors of the economy. There are many instances where many projects have got stalled in Sri Lanka. As reported by the economynext Sri Lanka is expected to commence 200 creditor funded projects remaining stalled. It is not only lack of funding that impacts timely completion of work/projects, but the level of efficiency of execution too has a great bearing upon successful conclusion of any undertaking.

One of the drawbacks of BA is the lack of robust accountability mechanism that causes poor quality service delivery leading to delays in execution and completion of projects/work undertaken for common good. This creates inefficiencies and brings about fertile ground to thrive corruption and underhand practices to circumvent established systems. BA adversely impacts resource allocation and management due to lack of efficient planning and oversight. This together with inefficiency in execution results in economic losses through cost overruns, project completion delays and substandard quality of work produced. Adherence to inefficient legacy systems and rigid procedures lead to deep-seated aversion to change. Disinclination to change stifles innovation and discourages adoption of cutting-edge technologies and modern practices causing stagnation and lack of progress. As a result, SL is lagging behind many counterparts in the world in many respects having failed to embrace evolving global technologies and best practices.

Corruption and adverse fallouts

BA fosters corruption which directly leads to undue drain of public resources and funds surpassing estimated levels. The resultant inefficiency in management of public expenditure entails cost overruns and deficits in annual budgets occasioning a chain of adverse economic consequences. These adverse economic fallouts end up being translated into yawning budget deficits setting in motion: need for deficit financing and enhanced borrowings from local and foreign sources which sometimes accompany exorbitant costs and stringent repayment terms. Additional borrowings necessitate imposition of new taxes and increasing the rates of taxes that are already in force to meet additional financial commitments that ensue. Additional tax burdens inevitably pile up enormous economic hardships on the poor occasioning widespread public discontent and condemnation. Moreover, additional financial commitments result in further worsening of the already onerous and unbearable debt repayment obligations. This is typically how mega scale corruption rampant in the public sector in SL has brought about the unprecedented economic crisis that people in SL are facing today.

Corruption deters productive investment in vital sectors of the economy. This makes doing business in Sri Lanka highly challenging for overseas investors. It is one of the main reasons that has so far prevented SL in attracting Foreign Direct Investments on a large scale. In the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published by Transparency International in 2023, SL ranked 115^th out of 180 countries measured with an overall score at 34. The CPI scoring system uses a scale from 1 to 100 whereby countries with scores below 50 are considered as having serious corruption problems and SL’s standing in the CPI clearly indicates the adverse implications the rampant corruption in public sector has had on the ailing Sri Lankan economy struggling in the throes of bankruptcy.

Similarly, according to world bank annual ratings SL ranked 99^th out of 190 countries in the Ease of Doing Business in 2019. This shows that SL must go a long way in making it an attractive and favourable destination for Foreign Direct Investments.

Urgent need to cleanse National Procurement Process

SL does not have comprehensive national procurement law. Thus, procurements are regulated by National Procurement Guidelines (NPG) issued in 2006 by the then National Procurement Agency. NPG set out standard procedures to be adopted in state procurements.

It has been observed that a detrimental trend of bypassing NPGs has set in, in the wake of the recent economic crisis and procurements have been carried out overlooking the standard procedures. Consequently, there has been a marked increase in large scale procurements being made disregarding the NPGs. Said procurements have been highly conspicuous in critical sectors, inter alia healthcare, energy and power.

Although lengthy time frames involved in standard procedures have been cited time and again as main justification for bypassing NPG’s including established tender procedures, such action has been smacking of corruption and has led to serious financial losses and adverse socio-economic implications. The health sector offers a typical example of this detrimental practice, where procurement of sub-standard medications led to huge financial losses whilst costing many hapless ones their dear lives. It was the poor who bore the brunt and were compelled to pay the heavy price as they were unable to afford costly private medical care.

Corruption vulnerabilities in state procurement were highlighted by the IMF in its “Technical Assistance Report – Governance Diagnostic Assessment” prepared based on information available as of September 23. The report highlighted that corruption vulnerabilities remained notably pronounced and are alarmingly high in state procurement. The absence of a comprehensive national procurement law has made the national procurement mechanism vulnerable to strong political involvement in vendor section and awarding of contracts. Moreover, selection of parties through non-competitive methods based on criteria to best serve vested interests through non-transparent processes obviously has led to poor contract management and performance monitoring bringing about huge financial losses, work quality issues. The absence of information on ownership of companies makes the entire procurement mechanism vulnerable for manipulation by fraudulent elements who are able to exert their influence and spread their tentacles to control the procurement processes through fraudulent proxy mechanisms to gain filthy lucre in large scale causing serious public detriment and financial losses.

The state procurement process drastically tainted by self-serving political machinations and collusion by the public sector officialdom obviously has led to fraudulent practices of corruption to entrench and thrive defeating the very purpose for which the procurement mechanism has been established.

These are some of the formidable challenges AKD regime must contend with in navigating its course to put the economy back on track.

Subversion of Democracy

The newly installed regime led by AKD must seriously take cognizance of the fact that there are inimical forces contriving to scuttle the action plans and well-meaning initiatives undertaken to guide the nation towards economic prosperity. Securing a healthy and comfortable parliamentary majority at the forthcoming general election is sine-qua-non if the socio political agenda to usher in an era of true prosperity is to be executed successfully to achieve desired outcomes.

Undoubtedly, some of the measures to be taken in line with the pledges made entail concerted action to eradicate the deep-seated cancer of corruption in the public service, which implicates many in the body politic today. Moreover, many cases of mammoth scale frauds alleged to have taken place under successive dispensations may cast doubt on the conduct of many bigwigs in the political firmament whose integrity in the management of public affairs has been called into question over and over. Many scams and scandals like bond scam, sugar scam and the like point accusing fingers at some of the big guns and any serious, objective and unbiased investigation conducted in an efficient manner is bound to unravel truths that to date remain concealed. Besides, the Easter Sunday Catastrophe which claimed numerous innocent lives and maimed a large number so far has remained a mystery yet to be resolved. There may be many biggies who were part and parcel of the govt of the day, who will be in for rude awakening, that buck will stop at them for various acts of commission and omission.

Also, there is another set of leading politicos who were found culpable by the apex court of the land for their infamous actions to bring about bankruptcy of the economy in SL, who will vie for political power come forthcoming general elections. All these parties are once again asking for a mandate having driven the country towards bankruptcy no so long ago, once again put SL on the right track to achieve socio-economic prosperity that they miserably failed to accomplish when ruled the roost. It could be surmised these parties would resort to every means available to grab power and get elected to Parliament, as their chances of escaping the long arm of the law would be slim otherwise. In this context, the AKD regime must brace itself to encounter multifarious maneuvers and machinations to be unleashed by various inimical forces hell bent on sinisterly grabbing power by subverting the democratic process in play to elect a government for their selfish benefits.

These forces would resort to every possible strategy at their disposal to skew public opinion and achieve a favourable electoral outcome. For example, people may suddenly find international conspiracy theories in play through social media and various public media outlets loyal to the causes of inimical forces foretelling dreaded consequences for the nation. Moreover, these forces may invent fake reasons and circumstances urging so-called patriotic forces among masses to rise and rally round to fight an enemy that doesn’t in fact exist, with a view to destabilizing the exiting government agenda and cause costly distractions to stifle smooth functioning of the political leadership. Furthermore, concerted action plans could be devised to systematically create conditions to instill the poison of ethnic bias and religious  bigotry into society with a view to polarizing masses based on ethnicities and religious beliefs.

One of the very popular lowly tactics that could be resorted to by many in response to serious corruption accusations that may be levelled against them on large scale corruption and frauds would be to engage in “whataboutery”, recalling the past insurrections involving JVP to discredit the AKD regime and install irrational fears in the electorate about possible return to violent methods.

Sri Lankan electorate characterized by lack of political literacy would very highly susceptible to many crafty political strategies designed to subvert the democratic system. Even a mature and a well-informed electorate could be misguided and led astray by a sinister alliance consisting of media giants, entrepreneurs with deep pockets, well devised advertising campaigns and social media etc acting in concert to create a political atmosphere unfavorable for the regime led by AKD. Facebook and WhatsApp will come in hand for such unholy alliances to spread falsehoods and engage in massive misinformation campaigns.

These are some of the main challenges the political leadership of the NPP should be conscious about in carefully devising its future strategies and getting its act together to accomplish a decisive triumph at the upcoming general election, to ensure that the historic winning vote cast by masses on 21^st September 2024, would not be in vain and revered as one of the watershed events in the annals of the politics of mother Lanka that brought about “The Real System Change”.

*Lalith Dhammika Mendis – a Chartered Accountant by profession with over 34 years of post qualifying experience