Sri Lanka Anti-Corruption Program

During the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Singapore, the new 2006 Worldwide Governance Indicators report (WGI), entitled “Governance Matters V,” was released.  This year’s report consists of data for 213 countries and territories with six aggregate dimensions of governance for the past decade (as well as the many individual data inputs), and can be downloaded by visiting http://www.govindicators.org.

Also during the Annual Meetings in Singapore, on September 18th, 2006, the Development Committee discussed the World Bank’s strategy paper on strengthening its engagement on governance and anti-corruption. Please visit http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/comments/governancefeedback/ to submit feedback on the strategy paper.

A Daily Mirror article published on November 14 alludes to the fact that the SLFP-UNP MoU states nothing on the increasing levels of corruption. Ordinarily this may not have been significant but this omission is grave given that the incidence of corruption seems to be on the rise (there is very little hard data except for perception based data, so the ambiguity is intentional). The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ranked Sri Lanka at 84–a 6 point drop between 2005 and 2006 (after a 10 point drop between 2004 and 2005), clearly indicating that our progress is in the wrong direction!

While aspects of Good Governance encompass measures aimed at preventing corruption, which is better than prosecuting corruption after the fact—it is thrown about in the vaguest terms. Prevention is preferable, but effective and efficient prosecutorial mechanisms are also essential in maintaining low levels of corruption—prevention and prosecution have to go hand-in-hand. The MoU does talk about Good Governance but doesn’t lay out concretely what “Good” measures, processes or changes to the present system this will entail. But this is stating the obvious—we all know that there is little political will to curb corruption. So how do we as ordinary citizens create political will?

In a blog post recently IROMI suggests that in order to curb corruption we need to start with fighting cynicism first. While I completely agree with Iromi that the masses in Sri Lanka are rather cynical and apathetic, I don’t understand why people don’t work to fix things that go against their own self interests. I am not making a normative statement that people ought to only act in their self interests but making an observation that inaction in the face of challenges to self interest is illogical.

So how do we fight cynicism and how do we create political will? Can creating awareness about how corruption affects each and every person along with awareness raising about things people can do, spur a Movement that will demand of our leaders change in laws, policies and practices that will curb corruption? If there are a few people with integrity that can spearhead a Movement for Integrity will there be sufficient support from the non-cynical to make this Movement achieve a nation of integrity? These are just ideas and questions that I have been grappling with, any comments or suggestions?