Every rupee collected by the State belongs ultimately to the people who earned it. Governments are permitted to spend it, officials are entrusted to administer it and politicians are elected to decide how it should be used. None of them owns it.
There is something instructive about the conviction this week of former Civil Aviation Minister Piyankara Jayaratne. The amount at the centre of the case was approximately Rs. 330,000, reportedly spent from the funds of State-owned SriLankan Catering to provide meals for supporters attending a political May Day rally in 2014.
By the standards of Sri Lanka’s public finances, Rs. 330,000 is almost microscopic. Governments deal in trillions, ministries in billions and even relatively modest public projects routinely cost hundreds of millions of rupees.
Yet the Colombo High Court has imposed an effective sentence of seven years’ rigorous imprisonment following Jayaratne’s conviction. He retains his right of appeal and the judicial process must therefore be allowed to take its course.
The wider principle, however, should survive regardless of the identity of the politician concerned. Public money does not cease to be public money because the amount involved is small.
Sri Lanka has spent decades allowing the distinction between the State and the government of the day to become dangerously blurred. A ministerial vehicle becomes a political vehicle, a State institution becomes an instrument of patronage and public resources somehow acquire the colours of whichever party happens to occupy office.
This is not the invention of one administration or one political movement. Successive governments have participated in it and successive oppositions have discovered their objections to it most enthusiastically when they were no longer in government.
That is precisely why the principle must be institutional rather than political.
A government is elected to administer the State. It does not purchase the State at an election.
The money collected through VAT does not belong to the Minister of Finance. The money held by a State-owned company does not belong to the minister under whose portfolio that company happens to fall. A government vehicle is not the personal property of the politician fortunate enough to be driven around in it.
These are elementary distinctions, yet much of Sri Lanka’s history of public-sector abuse begins when they are forgotten.
The consequences extend far beyond corruption prosecutions. Every unnecessary political appointment, every extravagance paid from the public purse and every State resource diverted towards partisan advantage ultimately transfers a cost to somebody who had no part in making the decision.
That somebody is the citizen.
The shopkeeper paying VAT, the employee whose salary is taxed, the business paying corporate taxes and the family paying duties embedded in the price of imported goods are financing the State every day.
They are entitled to expect considerably more than assurances that their money is being properly spent.
They are entitled to proof.
That means procurement capable of scrutiny, accounts published on time, State-owned enterprises required to explain their expenditure and politicians prepared to accept that transparency is not an inconvenience inflicted upon government but one of the conditions attached to governing.
The same standard must apply to the present administration.
The NPP came to power carrying perhaps the strongest anti-corruption mandate Sri Lanka has given a government in recent political history. That mandate creates an opportunity to change the culture of public administration, but it also creates a higher standard against which this Government will inevitably be measured.
It cannot be enough to prosecute yesterday’s misuse of public money while tolerating tomorrow’s.
Nor should anti-corruption become synonymous merely with arrests, court appearances and dramatic allegations against former politicians. The most successful anti-corruption system is one which makes abuse difficult before the police ever need to become involved.
That requires institutions rather than personalities.
Auditors must be able to audit without fear. Procurement officials must be able to refuse improper instructions. State company directors must understand that their fiduciary obligations do not disappear when a minister telephones. Public servants must know that obedience to political authority does not include obedience to an unlawful instruction.
And politicians must finally understand the most important distinction of all.
Winning an election gives them authority over public administration for a limited period. It does not give them ownership of public property.
There is a useful simplicity to the Rs. 330,000 at the centre of this week’s case. Strip away the personalities, political parties and courtroom drama and what remains is a question every public official should be capable of answering before spending a single rupee.
Whose money is it?
The answer is the public’s.
Sri Lanka might save itself an extraordinary amount of money if everyone entrusted with spending it remembered that before reaching for the cheque book.
Be that as it may.
