Top economists exposed corruption as far back as 2007

A group of eminent economists is taking credit for exposing corruption as far back as 2007 which eventually led to the fall of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime.

Unbridled corruption by the coterie of powerful persons and Rajapaksa’s family was the core of the election plank during the Maithripala SirisenaRanil Wickremesinghe campaign at the January presidential poll which led to the former president being defeated.

“Thankfully there is free expression now and the media is free to comment. We were not able to get our ideas across (maybe) for these reasons,” Prof. A.D.V. de S. Indraratna, founder President of the Sri Lanka Economic Association (SLEA) told reporters at an informal gathering, recently.

SLEA, he said, prepared a report jointly with USAID support on corruption in 2007 by SLEA.

“We were the first to blow the lid on corruption in Sri Lanka. In 2006, the year of review in the report, the corruption under the former regime was equivalent to the value of 8.7 per cent of GDP (value Rs. 2,098.004 million). If this was invested, GDP would have grown by 2 per cent more,” he said.

Prof. Indraratne, who agreed with many other economist-colleagues and journalists at the informal discussion in Colombo that intimidation had prevented professionals from speaking out, said that report “went into the dustbin of history” until former Army Commander Sarath fonseka resurrected it during the 2010 presidential election campaign where corruption was his main issue.