By: Lankan
The resignations of Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody and Ministry Secretary Prof. Udayanga Hemapala are a welcome — if belated — step toward accountability. In a political culture where public office is often treated as a shield against scrutiny, stepping down to allow an unimpeded investigation is the appropriate course of action. The National People’s Power (NPP) government, elected on a platform of uncompromising integrity, could scarcely have done otherwise.
But let us be clear: resignation is merely the opening act. It is neither an admission of guilt nor a remedy for the estimated Rs. 7.7 billion in direct losses allegedly caused by the procurement of substandard coal.
The real test for the Dissanayake administration begins now. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has appointed a Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate coal imports dating back to 2009. While this sounds sweeping and decisive on paper, history offers a grim warning. In Sri Lanka, broad mandates are where truth goes to die.
A commission tasked with investigating 17 years of coal procurement—encompassing over 460 shipments, shifting global markets, and complex technical specifications—risks collapsing under its own weight. If the goal is a dusty, multi-volume report delivered years from now, a sprawling mandate is the perfect vehicle. If the goal is rapid accountability, the current approach is fundamentally flawed.
This inquiry requires a dual-track strategy to be credible.
First, the Commission must issue a focused interim report within 45 days addressing the immediate crisis: the contested South African coal shipments, the ignored quality failures, the capacity reductions at Norochcholai, and the specific officials who authorized these payments. The public deserves to know who signed off on gross calorific values that fell below required thresholds — and why the warnings of the Public Utilities Commission were seemingly ignored.
Second, this cannot be a purely judicial exercise. A panel of esteemed judges, no matter how capable, cannot independently assess combustion efficiency, international shipping standards, or complex energy forensics. The Commission must be explicitly supported by technical assessors — procurement specialists, forensic auditors, and coal engineers. Without them, the inquiry risks being outmaneuvered by bureaucrats fluent in the dark arts of procurement loopholes.
Furthermore, we must look beyond the Commission model. Sri Lanka underutilizes its Auditor General. While the Auditor General’s constitutional role is not to conduct public, courtroom-style trials, the office possesses immense authority to carry out rapid, forensic value-for-money audits. A simultaneous, aggressive audit — tracking the money trail, identifying control failures, and naming responsible accounting officers — would provide actionable insights far more quickly than a formal commission.
Other nations do this better. In South Africa, the Auditor-General actively enforces "consequence management," directly targeting accounting officers who fail to correct material irregularities. In the UK, audit findings trigger immediate parliamentary grilling. We must move past the archaic habit of appointing a commission and going to sleep.
Early detection of such massive bleeding of public funds shouldn't require a political crisis. Red flags—sudden changes to technical specifications, unusual advance payments, waivers of quality testing, or overriding technical objections—should trigger automatic, independent reviews. In the digital age, a system that cannot instantly reconcile a ship's manifest with a lab result and a payment voucher is a system designed for theft.
The NPP built its mandate on the assertion that it possessed a higher moral calibre than the traditional political establishment. Minister Jayakody’s prior indictment over a Rs. 8.8 million loss at the Ceylon Fertiliser Company was a glaring red flag — one that was inexplicably ignored when he was entrusted with the critical energy portfolio.
The government cannot preach sanctimony while practising the same defensive politics of the past. The delayed resignations are a step forward. Now, the administration must ensure that this inquiry produces rapid, expert-driven findings and prosecutable evidence — rather than becoming a slow, comfortable burial of the truth.
Accountability delayed is accountability denied.
Editor’s Note: The author is a well-known diaspora leader who has chosen to write for Jaffna Monitor under the pseudonym “Lankan.” The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Jaffna Monitor.
