Tuesday 28th April, 2026

The JVP-NPP government has painted itself into a corner and provided another rallying point to its political opponents, who are on the offensive, using the latest scandal as a bludgeon to beat the ruling party leaders with. The last few days have seen Opposition protests against the diversion of Treasury funds (USD 2.5 million) to a rogue account. The protesters would have the public believe that it is the biggest-ever theft of state funds, and the government has no moral right to remain in power. They are demanding that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake resign as the Minister of Finance and Dr. Harshana Suriyapperuma step down as the Secretary to the Finance Ministry.

However, there is a counterargument that cannot be ignored under the principle of natural justice. It posits that the fund diversion happened during a routine process of debt servicing, and the officials who handled the task did not contact the creditor, an Australian agency, despite being alerted by the Central Bank, and ordered the fund transfer, after checking with the phisher, of all people, on the account number. There is no evidence that they sought approval of the senior Treasury officials for the erroneous fund transfer, and the theft happened due to the sheer negligence of some officials in the External Resources Department (ERD).

The incumbent government has earned notoriety for scapegoating state officials, as evident from the manner in which it has sought to defend former Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, who is embroiled in a coal procurement scam. Therefore, it is only natural that the JVP-NPP administration stands accused of trying to help the President and the Treasury Chief save their skins politically by throwing some ERD officials to the wolves. It is popularly said that he who hath an ill name is half-hanged. Reputations and perceptions do matter in politics, but it is imperative that all aspects of an issue be examined thoroughly during an investigation before conclusions are drawn.

There seems to be no end to the current rulers’ bungling. The government blundered big time by keeping the theft of Treasury funds under wraps. The illegal fund diversion would not have snowballed into a huge political issue if the government had disclosed it immediately after the phishing attack came to light and called in the CID to conduct a probe. Most of all, Parliament should have been informed of the incident without delay.

Having made a colossal blunder that has provided grist to the Opposition’s mill, the least the government can do now to prove its much-touted commitment to upholding accountability and transparency is to heed Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa’s call for appointing a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) headed by an Opposition MP. The PSC proceedings must be open to the media. Ideally, the Opposition should have a majority on the committee, as the SJB has suggested. The government should be able to allow an independent parliamentary probe into the Treasury theft if it has nothing to hide. The public has a right to know the truth.

Many of those who are condemning the government for the illegal fund diversion pretend to be paragons of virtue, but they themselves are tainted. Some of them have a history of cutting numerous corrupt deals and defending crooks while in power. The bigwigs of the SJB and the UNP who are accusing the government of covering up rackets and shielding the corrupt went so far as to deny the Treasury bond scams in 2015 and had no qualms about defending those responsible for that financial crime. They even sought to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the bond scams, with a slew of footnotes. (Ironically, the JVP itself backed the UNP-led Yahapalana government despite the bond scams and other corrupt deals.) The less said about the SLPP politicians, the better. The SLPP became a metaphor for corruption, while in power, but today its leaders have taken to moral grandstanding and are on a crusade against corruption. They defended Keheliya Rambukwella, who was exposed for procuring substandard medicines and fake cancer drugs.

Sadly, the JVP-NPP government, which came to power, promising to eliminate corruption and usher in good governance, has failed to live up to the expectations of the public, who hoped for a new political culture. Worse, it has created a situation where the crooks out of power are recovering lost ground on the political front.