Political analyst and journalist Kusal Perera has accused President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s regime of presiding over corruption worth more in two years than the total value he attributes to nine years of corruption under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Perera’s allegations focus on a series of incidents involving Sri Lanka Customs and the country’s electricity supply, including the release of 323 containers without inspection and the import of 19 shipments of what he described as inferior-quality coal. Parliament has separately confirmed that 323 containers were released from the Colombo Port without mandatory physical inspection and established a Select Committee to examine the legality, accountability and contents of the consignments.
Perera said the financial loss associated with the containers could not simply be calculated at Rs 8 billion or Rs 10 billion without determining what the containers actually contained. He argued that their release without inspection made it impossible to establish the true value of the goods and the resulting loss to the country.
He also pointed to the quantities of “ice” — a term used for methamphetamine — subsequently detected in Sri Lanka and said this had created suspicions about whether the containers contained the drug. Perera did not establish that narcotics were present in the containers, but argued that the episode had nevertheless allowed large quantities of expensive goods to enter the country without payment of customs duties.
He described the alleged customs episode as a theft substantially larger than the Central Bank bond scandal associated with the previous Yahapalana administration. His comparison was part of a broader claim that the scale of corruption under Dissanayake’s regime had already surpassed that of the Rajapaksa years.
Perera also accused the authorities of allowing 19 shipments of poor-quality coal to enter the country, describing the transaction as a major fraud. He said the resulting reduction in electricity generation led to increased reliance on diesel-generated power, causing further financial losses.
The coal issue has also become the subject of official scrutiny. A Presidential Special Investigations Commission was reported on September 29 to have recorded 370 statements from 204 people in connection with coal transactions, with 10 individuals, including former energy ministers and ministry secretaries, expected to provide further statements.
Perera questioned whether the government could be expected to rebuild the country during the remaining three years of its term after what he described as two years of continuing corruption and failure to properly carry out the functions of government ministries.
His remarks come amid continuing scrutiny of the administration’s handling of both customs and coal procurement. In the container case, Parliament’s Select Committee has been tasked with determining who was responsible for the release, whether prohibited goods were involved and whether government authorities and private entities acted properly.
