Presidents have resigned due to kickback scandals. There is, seemingly, enough reason for certain government top rankers to resign as a result of the Thirupama (I’m coining a suitable nomenclature) scandal. A Peruvian Prime Minister resigned on account of a kickback scandal in 2018. Several others have.
However, leave alone considering resignation, there seem to be some obvious efforts being made to soft-peddle the crisis. But remember, Nixon had to resign not because he ordered the Watergate break-in, but due to the failed cover-up he subsequently engineered.
For those who for some reason may not have heard and were on holiday in Mars or Neptune, Nirupama Rajapaksa, a former Deputy Minister in a Rajapaksa administration, and Thirukumar Nadesan, her businessman husband, were named in the recent Pandora Papers as having offshore accounts with millions of dollars of cash stashed in them.
The stashed away personal wealth of the Thirupama duo, according to a close confidante of the couple, amounted to some $ 168 million.
Some of the kickbacks date to the ‘90s when the United National Party (UNP) Government was in power. That’s horrible too, but at least the current Leader of the Opposition was not in politics at that time.
But for the Thirupamas the kickbacks, etc. kept rolling in as late as 2014. Thirukumar Nadesan has not made any declaration as to how he came by this thick stash of cash. All he has done is to write a letter to the President saying he is innocent even before the Government decided on taking any action.
This writer called on Ranil Wickremesinghe to resign due to the Bond Scam scandal. He didn’t, but look at what happened to him in politics. In the absence of any proper explanation as to how the Thirupamas came by millions of dollars in the 2013-14 period, the connection that can be made is to the Government of that time.
Of which the President was the Defence Secretary. He made pledges about wiping out corruption when he was swept to power in 2019, and has stated that there would be no corruption scourge under his watch. However, the money is there in the Thirupama accounts. The International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ) – a bunch of intrepid investigative reporters – has done a brilliantly commendable job in exposing the cash stashes of the Thirupamas and several others including world leaders, and other top-tier political movers and shakers, and in the absence of any explanation, there is corruption, and it’s linked to the then-Government.
The nexus is obvious and it reeks. The amounts involved are substantial and former heads of government elsewhere have resigned due to lesser sums. On top of that, there has been odious silence and a knee-jerk reference of the matter to the regular Bribery Commission. In Parliament too, the effort has seemingly been to soft-pedal the development and claim that it cannot be discussed due to ongoing litigation.
There is no direct ongoing litigation with regard to the accounts, and the sums accumulated. The matters in court are on tangential issues. To the public, all attempts by the powers that be seem to have been to cover up.
This attempt at suppressing any transparent and adequate investigation is telling.
Under the circumstances, the only honourable thing left for a president whose avowed goal is to ferret out corruption is to resign along with a Government that – much like Ranil Wickremesinghe’s then scandal-hit “Bond Scam” regime – is untenable, and now mostly ineffectual too. What happens thereafter is anybody’s guess, but that uncertainty should not preclude the responsibility cast on the current set of rulers to hold themselves to account.
Icelandic Premier Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who has been in office since 2013, offered to resign and dissolve Parliament after the Panama Papers revealed details of an offshore company, Wintris, that his wife owns. Thousands of Icelanders crowded around the Parliament buildings in Reykjavík calling for the Prime Minister to resign, which he did eventually.
Wife? Cousin? Niece? It doesn’t make much of a difference. One thing that can be said is that there would be some smidgen of honour left if there is a resignation. The Government can be looked at as, though having lost credibility to govern, having done the honourable thing nevertheless.
The drip-drip of the repercussions from the revelations would be slow anyway. There was a former President here caught up in the Panama Papers scandal but that dross is now out of politics. But those caught up in the Panama revelations should be held to account too.
Libertarian Republicans such as Rand Paul are the only politicians saying that offshore accounts should not have to be revealed for tax purposes. When the Obama Government introduced legislation compelling US citizens to reveal the existence of any offshore bank accounts, Paul voted against the measure, saying it’s an invasion of privacy.
But these sentiments have a lot to do with taxation issues. Libertarians oppose over-taxation, but those who are exposed by the Pandora Papers scandal, particularly in the developing world, are stashing away money that’s unaccounted for by and large and there is a single word for that – corruption.
When it comes to stashing away illegally earned cash, there is no ideology, including that of libertarians, that excuses it. It’s why governments fall on account of exposés such as the Panama Papers, and prime ministers resign. The Pakistani Opposition has called for the resignation of Premier Imran Khan as well, even though he was quick to call for an investigation when several of his cabinet confidantes were exposed in the Pandora revelations.
There hasn’t been any attempt by the Thirupama duo to indicate the earnings are legitimate and besides, writing blatantly to the President can be seen as an uncalled-for attempt at interference with due process.
If Nadesan has nothing to hide, should he have to implore the President to do anything? The letter can be taken as a further sign that the duo is guilty – but there doesn’t seem to be an iota of prudence or rectitude.
This malfeasance has to end.
There has to be transparent due process and not influenced due process. The President has not chided Nadesan for writing the uncalled-for letter.
Writing letters seems to be Nadesan’s modus operandi. When there was a case filed against him when the Wickremesinghe regime was in power, he wrote to the then Prime Minister protesting his innocence.
He wrote a perturbed email to his advisors when a bank wanted details of his accounts – and that’s part of the ICIJ investigation and the details released.
All this conduct is seemingly tantamount to undue influencing of due process, and can be construed as a further sign of culpability. The duo can come clean if they can account for the money, but they apparently can’t, which gives the impression this is probably why they have stashed away the spoils in an offshore account.
The Government’s attempts to protect the duo in Parliament is in lockstep with the Thirupama duo’s apparent efforts to influence the system. None of them thought it fit to come up with any explanations, and now it’s too late.
A small but vociferous group of Chileans marched to Santiago’s presidential palace, La Moneda, last week, to deliver a blue envelope to President Sebastián Piñera calling for his resignation. Piñera too is exposed in the Pandora revelations. A blue envelope is what Peruvian employees get when they are asked to quit their jobs.
The citizenry has still not found their voice here. Maybe they are waiting, and watching. There is no likelihood that they would be silent. They would call for the Gotabaya Government to go home, and perhaps rightly so. It’s not as if we have a Government that has acquitted itself well either.
In this backdrop, the Thirupama revelations are absolutely the last straw. What sort of democracy do we have if they are allowed to ride this Pandora scandal as if nothing happened?
It will be an insult to the brave men and women who exposed these papers, and to all good journalists who applaud that standard. If there is no resignation bruited, it will be an insult to all law-abiding citizens of this country.
(The writer is a former Editor-in-Chief of three national English language publications and a practicing Attorney-at-Law. He is an Editors’ Guild award-winning columnist, and contributing writer and columnist for the Nikkei Asian Review and South China Morning Post, while his editorials have been published in The Australian)
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.In the wake of Pandora, does the Government have to resign?
11 Oct 2021
In the wake of Pandora, does the Government have to resign?
11 Oct 2021
Presidents have resigned due to kickback scandals. There is, seemingly, enough reason for certain government top rankers to resign as a result of the Thirupama (I’m coining a suitable nomenclature) scandal. A Peruvian Prime Minister resigned on account of a kickback scandal in 2018. Several others have.
However, leave alone considering resignation, there seem to be some obvious efforts being made to soft-peddle the crisis. But remember, Nixon had to resign not because he ordered the Watergate break-in, but due to the failed cover-up he subsequently engineered.
For those who for some reason may not have heard and were on holiday in Mars or Neptune, Nirupama Rajapaksa, a former Deputy Minister in a Rajapaksa administration, and Thirukumar Nadesan, her businessman husband, were named in the recent Pandora Papers as having offshore accounts with millions of dollars of cash stashed in them.
The stashed away personal wealth of the Thirupama duo, according to a close confidante of the couple, amounted to some $ 168 million.
Some of the kickbacks date to the ‘90s when the United National Party (UNP) Government was in power. That’s horrible too, but at least the current Leader of the Opposition was not in politics at that time.
But for the Thirupamas the kickbacks, etc. kept rolling in as late as 2014. Thirukumar Nadesan has not made any declaration as to how he came by this thick stash of cash. All he has done is to write a letter to the President saying he is innocent even before the Government decided on taking any action.
This writer called on Ranil Wickremesinghe to resign due to the Bond Scam scandal. He didn’t, but look at what happened to him in politics. In the absence of any proper explanation as to how the Thirupamas came by millions of dollars in the 2013-14 period, the connection that can be made is to the Government of that time.
Of which the President was the Defence Secretary. He made pledges about wiping out corruption when he was swept to power in 2019, and has stated that there would be no corruption scourge under his watch. However, the money is there in the Thirupama accounts. The International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ) – a bunch of intrepid investigative reporters – has done a brilliantly commendable job in exposing the cash stashes of the Thirupamas and several others including world leaders, and other top-tier political movers and shakers, and in the absence of any explanation, there is corruption, and it’s linked to the then-Government.
The nexus is obvious and it reeks. The amounts involved are substantial and former heads of government elsewhere have resigned due to lesser sums. On top of that, there has been odious silence and a knee-jerk reference of the matter to the regular Bribery Commission. In Parliament too, the effort has seemingly been to soft-pedal the development and claim that it cannot be discussed due to ongoing litigation.
There is no direct ongoing litigation with regard to the accounts, and the sums accumulated. The matters in court are on tangential issues. To the public, all attempts by the powers that be seem to have been to cover up.
This attempt at suppressing any transparent and adequate investigation is telling.
Under the circumstances, the only honourable thing left for a president whose avowed goal is to ferret out corruption is to resign along with a Government that – much like Ranil Wickremesinghe’s then scandal-hit “Bond Scam” regime – is untenable, and now mostly ineffectual too. What happens thereafter is anybody’s guess, but that uncertainty should not preclude the responsibility cast on the current set of rulers to hold themselves to account.
Icelandic Premier Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who has been in office since 2013, offered to resign and dissolve Parliament after the Panama Papers revealed details of an offshore company, Wintris, that his wife owns. Thousands of Icelanders crowded around the Parliament buildings in Reykjavík calling for the Prime Minister to resign, which he did eventually.
Wife? Cousin? Niece? It doesn’t make much of a difference. One thing that can be said is that there would be some smidgen of honour left if there is a resignation. The Government can be looked at as, though having lost credibility to govern, having done the honourable thing nevertheless.
The drip-drip of the repercussions from the revelations would be slow anyway. There was a former President here caught up in the Panama Papers scandal but that dross is now out of politics. But those caught up in the Panama revelations should be held to account too.
Libertarian Republicans such as Rand Paul are the only politicians saying that offshore accounts should not have to be revealed for tax purposes. When the Obama Government introduced legislation compelling US citizens to reveal the existence of any offshore bank accounts, Paul voted against the measure, saying it’s an invasion of privacy.
But these sentiments have a lot to do with taxation issues. Libertarians oppose over-taxation, but those who are exposed by the Pandora Papers scandal, particularly in the developing world, are stashing away money that’s unaccounted for by and large and there is a single word for that – corruption.
When it comes to stashing away illegally earned cash, there is no ideology, including that of libertarians, that excuses it. It’s why governments fall on account of exposés such as the Panama Papers, and prime ministers resign. The Pakistani Opposition has called for the resignation of Premier Imran Khan as well, even though he was quick to call for an investigation when several of his cabinet confidantes were exposed in the Pandora revelations.
There hasn’t been any attempt by the Thirupama duo to indicate the earnings are legitimate and besides, writing blatantly to the President can be seen as an uncalled-for attempt at interference with due process.
If Nadesan has nothing to hide, should he have to implore the President to do anything? The letter can be taken as a further sign that the duo is guilty – but there doesn’t seem to be an iota of prudence or rectitude.
This malfeasance has to end.
There has to be transparent due process and not influenced due process. The President has not chided Nadesan for writing the uncalled-for letter.
Writing letters seems to be Nadesan’s modus operandi. When there was a case filed against him when the Wickremesinghe regime was in power, he wrote to the then Prime Minister protesting his innocence.
He wrote a perturbed email to his advisors when a bank wanted details of his accounts – and that’s part of the ICIJ investigation and the details released.
All this conduct is seemingly tantamount to undue influencing of due process, and can be construed as a further sign of culpability. The duo can come clean if they can account for the money, but they apparently can’t, which gives the impression this is probably why they have stashed away the spoils in an offshore account.
The Government’s attempts to protect the duo in Parliament is in lockstep with the Thirupama duo’s apparent efforts to influence the system. None of them thought it fit to come up with any explanations, and now it’s too late.
A small but vociferous group of Chileans marched to Santiago’s presidential palace, La Moneda, last week, to deliver a blue envelope to President Sebastián Piñera calling for his resignation. Piñera too is exposed in the Pandora revelations. A blue envelope is what Peruvian employees get when they are asked to quit their jobs.
The citizenry has still not found their voice here. Maybe they are waiting, and watching. There is no likelihood that they would be silent. They would call for the Gotabaya Government to go home, and perhaps rightly so. It’s not as if we have a Government that has acquitted itself well either.
In this backdrop, the Thirupama revelations are absolutely the last straw. What sort of democracy do we have if they are allowed to ride this Pandora scandal as if nothing happened?
It will be an insult to the brave men and women who exposed these papers, and to all good journalists who applaud that standard. If there is no resignation bruited, it will be an insult to all law-abiding citizens of this country.
(The writer is a former Editor-in-Chief of three national English language publications and a practicing Attorney-at-Law. He is an Editors’ Guild award-winning columnist, and contributing writer and columnist for the Nikkei Asian Review and South China Morning Post, while his editorials have been published in The Australian)
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!