DailyMirror
The official term of the Bribery Commission is due to expire in two days, by March 26 and if new members are not appointed, 1,727 complaints of bribery and unlawful enrichment which are under investigation now will have to be abandoned.
The present members of the Bribery Commission are Ameer Ismail (Chairman) P. Edissuriya and Indra de Silva. Based on the recommendations by the Constitutional Committee appointed under the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, the former President Chandrika Kumaranatunga had appointed the three members of the Bribery Commission in March 2005 to be valid for five years.
According to the 17th Constitutional Amendment the members of the Commission for Investigation of Bribery or Corruption had to be done with the recommendations by the Constitutional Committee.
However, as the Constitutional Committee was presently inactive, the appointment of new members for the Bribery Commission has now become a problem. If the appointments cannot be made, then all the investigations that have been conducted would come to a halt. According to a high official of the Commission, even some high ranking politicians are being investigated.
In addition, the further action on the 93 Investigations concluded and 19 investigations of which the primary processing had been completed would also be affected.
During this year, 331 complaints had been received so far. In the year 2009, there had been 3,095 complaints and out of them, 1,417 files had been completed. The Commission conducted 136 raids in the year 2009 and out of them, 62 raids had achieved results, the spokesman said.