Awareness campaign on a society sans bribery and corruption
Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)28 Aug 2018BY KURULU KOOJANA KARIYAKARAWANA

The new Bribery Commission Act being formulated will criminalise bribery in the private sector and bribery of foreign public officials, Commission’s Director General Sarath Jayamanne PC said.

View More

What makes us give bribes or solicit bribes from other people? In a psychological sense, extortion is viewed as behaviour motivated by greed, desperation and ambition. The very particular set of thinking and expectations involved in bribery and corruption has been an occasional topic of research for economists and psychologists over the years, on the overall cultural, organizational, and personal levels.

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) plans to propose a special unit to handle declarations made in respect of the Asset and Liabilities Law.

The Supreme Court overruled primary objections raised by the Counsels for the Bribery Commission yesterday on the maintainability of the Writ Petition filed by incumbent Appeal Court Judge seeking the Supreme Court to stay the judicial proceedings against him. It was fixed for hearing June 3, 2018. The Bench comprised Chief Justice Priyasath Dep, Justices Vijith Malalgoda and Lalith Dehideniya.

Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) Director General Sarath Jayamanne, PC, yesterday said that the Bribery Act would be amended to include match fixing as a punishable offense.

Chairman of the Special Presidential Task Force on Recovery of State Assets J.C.Weliamuna, PC recently said that in many situations even after peaceful regime change, the political will to reform a corrupt system was obstructed due to bureaucracy by those who have been beneficiaries of previous corrupt regimes. Weliamuna said that political will and bureaucratic will were both equally important, urging that it was time to explore the possibilities of establishing a UN Working group to examine "the post state capture" realities in relation to fragile governance structures and bureaucracies.

The Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), Sarath Jayamanna PC in an interview with the Sunday Observer, outlines the challenges faced by the Commission and its future plans to set up a robust prevention mechanism to eliminate bribery and corruption in the public sector. He says, the CIABOC is also eying Sri Lanka Cricket and the private sector in its cleanup campaign.

Additional Secretary, Finance and Media Ministry Thilaka Jayasundara said early this week that the country hadn’t been able to achieve its full potential due to inconsistent government policies, political instability, inefficient government bureaucracy, and extremely poor work ethics culture.

By Uditha Jayasinghe
If the private sector is serious about stamping out bribery, it must step up and cooperate with the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), its top official said yesterday, calling on companies to work with its officials, insisting it would be faithful to its task.