COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
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7 MARCH <strong>2012</strong> SRI LANKA<br />
―However it had recommenced operations on May 16 as a result of the new<br />
appointments on the recommendations of the Constitutional Council.‖<br />
16.03 The UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural<br />
Rights 279 , dated 9 December 2010, expressed concern ―… about the high levels of<br />
corruption which undermines the realization of economic, social and cultural rights for all<br />
and the fact that the State party has not yet taken firm and effective measures to<br />
combat corruption and impunity associated with it.‖<br />
16.04 The Freedom House report, Freedom in the World 2011, Sri Lanka 280 , covering events<br />
in 2010, released on 10 August 2011 noted that:<br />
―Official corruption is a continuing concern. The current legal and administrative<br />
framework is inadequate for promoting integrity and punishing corrupt behavior, and<br />
weak enforcement of existing safeguards has been a problem. For example, legislators<br />
routinely ignore wealth-declaration requirements stipulated in the 1994 Bribery<br />
Amendment Act. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption<br />
(CIABOC) has taken up hundreds of cases, but they have yielded only five prosecutions<br />
(three acquittals and two convictions), and after the term of the commissioners expired<br />
in <strong>March</strong> 2010, replacements were not appointed, rendering the body ineffective for the<br />
remainder of the year. Corruption watchdogs have found that government interference<br />
and the Treasury's ability to withhold funding compromise the CIABOC's independence.<br />
Corruption cases can only be initiated by members of the public, who have been<br />
reluctant to do so because of a lack of whistleblower protections. Sri Lanka was ranked<br />
91 out of 178 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2010 Corruption<br />
Perceptions Index.‖<br />
16.05 Sri Lanka was ranked 86 (out of 182 countries) with a score of 3.3 in Transparency<br />
International‘s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 281 , released on 1December<br />
2011. The CPI score indicates the perceived level of public-sector corruption in a<br />
country from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (low levels of corruption). Additional information is<br />
available from this weblink to the website of Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL)<br />
The main text of this <strong>COI</strong> <strong>Report</strong> contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section<br />
to 2 <strong>March</strong> <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
Return to contents<br />
279<br />
UN Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights , dated 9<br />
December 2010 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/co/E.C.12.LKA.CO.2-4.doc date<br />
accessed 25 May 2011, p3<br />
280<br />
Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2011, Sri Lanka , covering events in 2010, 10 August 2011,<br />
accessed via Refworld<br />
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,,LKA,,4e4268bd1a,0.html date accessed 10 January, Political<br />
Rights and Civil Liberties<br />
281<br />
Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released on 1 December 2011<br />
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011date accessed 8 February <strong>2012</strong><br />
119
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