Over 50 pc Lankan govt contracts corrupt: Sirisena concedes

President Maithripala Sirisena, who came to power on a pledge to root out government corruption, today conceded the menace was still widespread in Sri Lanka with more than 50 per cent of tender procurements being dodgy.
Adressing an anti-corruption meeting two years after he was elected on a campaign pledge to end corruption, Sirisena said he "regrets" that organised bribery was still prevalent.
"I regret to say that organised bribery and corruption is still taking place in government institutions," he said.
The Sri Lanka president, who has ordered investigations into alleged widespread corruption under his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa, said he does not want to take names because those he would name will "go on strike from tomorrow".

Sirisena referred to a strike recently by customs officers against the installation of a CCTV system designed to discourage money changing hands illegally.
"Such is the level of resistance and I am told that officers who refuse to cooperate with organised corruption are sidelined and not given any work by their superiors," he said.

"We say call tenders to prevent corruption, but in reality we know that the tender procedures are also corrupt. It happens in over 50 per cent of the time. Even the technical evaluation committees are corrupt," Sirisena said.
Sirisena ousted Rajapaksa in January last year, accusing him and his family of corruption. He has also often criticised the national unity government under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Rajapaksa ruled Sri Lanka for nine years beginning in 2005. He was popular among the country's majority ethnic Sinhalese for leading the military's brutal defeat of the Tamil Tigers, ending a 25-year civil war in 2009.
But he was increasingly criticised for failing to allow an investigation of alleged war crimes by the military, while also facing mounting allegations of corruption and nepotism.