Recovery of illegal funds deposited abroad through fraudulent acquisition of assets, will be initiated immediately. This will be enforced with the new anti-corruption law coming into force on Sep. 15, where the ability to deal with such people will be possible by the new Bribery or Corruption Investigation Commission that will be empowered for it, said Minister of Justice, Prison Affairs and Constitutional Reforms, President’s Counsel, Dr. Wijayadasa Rajapakshe yesterday (4).
Since the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has agreed to provide support to recover these stolen assets, Minister Dr. Rajapakshe said that this operation will commence within a few days time. In order to recover stolen assets, the World Bank and the UNODC are jointly working according to the STAR method.
A special discussion between Dr. Wijayadasa Rajapakshe and the UNODC South Asian Regional Representative Marco Teixeira, was held at the Ministry of Justice yesterday (4) morning.
The UNODC was established in 1997 with the specific goal of securing a world sans drug crime, corruption and terrorism, protecting world peace, and contributing to development activities.
The Justice Minister expressed his views on the judicial system in Sri Lanka to prevent crimes, the new anti-corruption law passed to reduce corruption, the new anti-terrorism bill and the rehabilitation process for the rehabilitation of drug addicts to prevent crime. Minister Rajapakshe went on to explain the facts about the adoption of new laws to strengthen the rehabilitation process, the establishment of new centres to rehabilitate drug addicts, the rehabilitation process in prisons and the community corrections system in prisons. Mr Teixeira stated that numerous programmes are already implemented to fight crime and corruption in Sri Lanka, and in future, all necessary support will be provided to Sri Lanka for implementation of those programmes, for a country free of crime and corruption.
Secretary Ministry of Justice, Prisons and Constitutional Reforms, Vasantha Perera, UNODC Representative Ekaterina Kolykhalova South, East and Pacific Regional Operations Unit, Siri Bjune, Head of Global Maritime and Crime Division, Sri Lanka Programme, UNODC, National Program Coordinator of UNODC, Anusha Munasinghe, also attended.
Varuna Dayaratne