By Dr. H.M. Gunatilake and Prashani Senadhilankara
Background
Governance and corruption issues have been in the core of the political and socio-economic discussions in Sri Lanka for a long time and the interest of this topic deepened since 2015 election campaign. Election of new governments have been heavily influenced by the stand taken by contesting political parties on corruption. Moreover, the public perceptions about the performances of the appointed governments depends on the way they conduct in relation to corruption. The unpresented economic crisis unfolded since 2022 and the International Monitory Fund’s governance diagnostic report further expounded the relevance and importance of corruption in the country. The NPP government came to power promising a corruption free regime and taking legal actions against corrupt political and bureaucratic elites was a major election pledge. The educated segment of the society which is proficient in English including academics, professionals and civil society organizations seem to be well aware of the governance an corruption issues faced by the country. However, to what extent the general public understand and perceive corruption as an important issue that directly or indirectly affect their well-being is and area for more research. In this context, findings of a recent public perceptions survey presented in in this article demonstrate how the public understands the impacts of corruption on the economy and their well-being.
This survey was undertaken by Center for Poverty analysis (CEPA) covering 2611 households in 8 districts of Sri Lanka. Districts and DS divisions were purposively selected and the GN divisions and households within GN divisions were randomly selected. The standard good practices in designing the questionnaire, enumerator selection and training and implementing the survey was strictly adhered in collecting the data. The survey was conducted between October 2024 and January 2025. The questions were framed to identify the reasons for the economic crisis including Covid-19 pandemic, long term economic mismanagement and corruption. The majority of the respondents about 78% recognized the contribution of the pandemic for the economic crisis. This article focuses on governance and corruption issues. The respondents were presented a statement in relation to the causes of the economic crisis and requested to responds stating whether they strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree.
Appropriateness of economic policies and their implementation
When respondents were presented with a statement – “leaders didn’t know the right policies” – 32% strongly agreed and 37% agreed. In total, 69% of the respondent believe that leader of the country did not have a good knowledge about the appropriate policies. Only 7% disagreed with the statement. When a similar statement was given to the respondents, 27% responded strongly agreed that good policies were not properly implemented and 38% agreed. Together 65% of the respondent opine that good policies were not properly implemented and only 6% disagreed to the statement. For both statement about 11-13% of the respondents sated that they have no firm opinion about the issue. What do these findings reveals? In an era of scientific and evidence-based policy making is a must to thrive in a highly competitive globalized environment, the public believe that we didn’t have knowledgeable policy makers and their efforts on implementing good policies are wanting. Thus the majority of the respondents perceives that poor economic governance is a cause of the economic crisis.
Figure 1: Perception on political leaders knowledge about policies
Figure 2: Perception on implementation of good policies
Corruption and Economic Crisis
There has been a lively debate on corruption amongst the academics, professionals and political leaders. However, it was not clear whether the general public considers the corruption as one of the main reasons for the collapse of the economy. In order to shed some light on this issue the perception survey asked whether the corruption and stealing by political leaders is a reason for the economic crisis. About 42% strongly agreed that corruption and stealing as a main reason for economic crisis and 35% agreed. Thus, together 77% of the respondents believe that corruption by political leaders is a cause of the economic crisis. Only 3% disagreed. However, 11% did not express any firm opinion on the issue.
Figure 3: Perceptions on corruption and stealing by the political leaders
A similar statement was presented about the corruption by government officials. About 38% of the respondents strongly agreed that corruption stealing by government officials is a reason for the economic crisis and about 34% agreed. Together 72% of the respondents believe that corruption and stealing by the government officials is a reason for the economic crisis. Only 3% disagreed and 13% did not express any firm opinion about the issue. Thus, the public believes that both political leaders and government official are corrupt and their corrupt actions are a reason for the collapse of the economy. The results are also indicating that the significance of the corruption by political leaders is higher than that of government officials.
Figure 4: Perception oncCorruption and stealing by the government officials
The results show that the majority of the respondents have firm opinions on governance and corruption issues. However, the categories of neutral and don’t know also indicative of the lack of awareness of the public on the issues that matter for their well-being. This category represents about 22%-29% of the sample. As per the results in the table 1, lack awareness or firm opinions about economic policies and their implementation seem to be higher than that of corruption. The majority has some idea about what is happening in the country while about one fourth of the population is not sure about the reasons behind the resent economic crisis that pushed many to poverty and destitution. These findings indicates that awareness building on economic matters still has a role in the Sri Lankan society.
Table 1: Awareness of economic policy and corruption issues
Concluding Remarks
The findings of this survey may not be surprising but it has some important messages. First, majority of the public perceives corruption as an important issue. It is a reaffirmation for the ruling party that its anti-corruption work is supported by the public. Remaining uncorrupt and intensifying the legal actions against past corruption will be appreciated by the public. The findings also provide a strong message to the opposition. Rather than trying to play -down the gravity of the impact corruption issues, as currently done by some opposition parliamentarians, they should reform themselves, take an anti-corruption stand and conduct accordingly, if they are to have a political future. Second, the public perception highlights the importance of formulating appropriate economic policies and implementing them. It is too early to assess the present government’s approach for economic policy. At the moment the economy is doing well with about 5% growth but likelihood of slowing down is pointed out by professional and funding agencies. The ultimate public approval depends on how well-off are they and reducing corruption is only a necessary condition for this end. Therefore designing right kind of economic policies and implementing them fully should be given the deserving priority while working against the corruption. Third, awareness on economic governance and corruption issues by the public is quite high in Sri Lanka but there still some room for improvements.