Can Get Back Money If Can Trace It - Ranil

COLOMBO (News 1st) - Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe addressed the critical issue of corruption during the CA Sri Lanka President's Reflections program held in Colombo on Wednesday (16).

"We have gazetted the proceeds of crimes," Ranil Wickremesinghe began. "Everyone talks of getting the money back, if you can trace it, but you have to have a law, and even that is a 10-year process." 

He stressed the importance of amending several laws, including the Money Laundering Act and the Companies Act, to enable thorough investigations into corruption.

He added, "These are the experiences of other countries. The IMF brought us the best possible advisors on this. Then we had to upgrade our bribery commission itself. For a long time, we had not paid enough attention, and we had to get our officers trained."

Wickremesinghe also addressed the challenges of immediate action against corruption, stating, "If you say that you can stop corruption immediately, everything will come to a halt? No, that I don't think is possible."

He pointed out that to date, they have not found any money outside Sri Lanka and highlighted the lengthy process of recovering such funds: "Even if you find money, the question is, it will take you 10 years to get it back, so it is not relevant to dealing with the economy."

"My first one was to prevent corruption in the future, and then punish all those who were there. If we go through this, we'll have the best anti-corruption system in the whole of South Asia." He emphasized the need for accelerated growth, aiming for an 8% increase over the next four to five years, while noting the current political challenges that must be navigated with the National People’s Power and the IMF.