By Vox Civis
Eight months is a long time for a constitutional democracy to leave its chief financial watchdog leaderless. In Sri Lanka, however, the prolonged vacancy in the office of the Auditor General has become more than a bureaucratic delay. It has evolved into a symbol of a deeper struggle over power, accountability and the meaning of “system change” under the National People’s Power (NPP) government, which ironically, was the strongest voice on the importance of the post, pre-election.
What began as a procedural disagreement between the current President and the Constitutional Council (CC) has hardened into a political standoff with serious implications for fiscal oversight, institutional independence and public trust at a moment when the country can least afford uncertainty, in the backdrop of the Ditwah disaster and the government’s appeal for financial help.
The facts are well known. Since April 2025, the constitutionally mandated post of Auditor General has remained vacant. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has nominated four individuals to the Constitutional Council during this time, and all four have been rejected by the CC. The Council has cited deficiencies in experience, suitability or independence. The President, for his part, has accused the CC – particularly its civil society members – of obstructionism and resistance to reform.
The opposition has gone further, alleging that the Executive’s persistence in nominating “outsiders” reflects a deliberate attempt to install a pliant figure who would shield the government from scrutiny, most notably in relation to the controversial release of hundreds of shipping containers from the Colombo Port earlier this year, which audit becomes due next year.
Reform: mere rhetoric?
At one level, this is a dispute about qualifications and statutory interpretation. At another, it is about the boundaries of Executive power in a system that was explicitly redesigned, through the 21st Amendment, to prevent the concentration of authority in one office. The unresolved appointment has exposed the fragility of Sri Lanka’s post-crisis governance architecture and raised uncomfortable questions about whether the rhetoric of reform is quietly giving way to the familiar pattern of control.
The rejected nominees themselves tell a revealing story. The most recent, Colonel O.R. Rajasinghe of the Army’s Audit Division, was proposed just two weeks ago and rejected by a 5-4 margin. The nomination of a serving military officer to head the civilian National Audit Office triggered immediate backlash from opposition parties, professional bodies and civil society. Their objection was not merely symbolic.
The Auditor General’s role demands deep familiarity with public sector accounting, procurement law, parliamentary procedure and constitutional convention; expertise that cannot be substituted by internal military auditing experience. The rejection reflects a broader anxiety about the creeping militarisation of civilian oversight functions, an anxiety sharpened by Sri Lanka’s long history of emergency rule and securitised governance.
Growing mistrust
Earlier nominees fared no better. H.T.P. Chandana, an audit officer from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, was criticised as an “outsider” to the National Audit Office hierarchy, lacking exposure to the full scope of state finance. L.S.P. Jayaratne, a Senior Deputy Auditor General, was also rejected, though the reasons were less transparently articulated. The cumulative effect of these rejections has been to underscore a growing mistrust between the Executive and the Constitutional Council, each claiming to act in defence of the public interest while implicitly questioning the other’s motives.
Hovering over this impasse is the figure of G.H.D. Dharmapala, the senior career auditor who has been serving as Acting Auditor General for several months. To the opposition, audit trade unions and many within the profession, Dharmapala represents the obvious choice: over three decades of experience, deep institutional memory and seniority within the Audit Service. Their argument is disarmingly simple. If Dharmapala has been competent enough to act in the role during a period of acute fiscal stress, why is he deemed unfit for permanent appointment?
The government’s response has been twofold. First, it has pointed to the National Audit Act No. 19 of 2018, which requires the Auditor General to be a Chartered Accountant. Dharmapala’s defenders counter that the spirit of the law was to ensure professional competence, not to disqualify seasoned auditors on technical grounds. Second, and more controversially, an allegation surfaced in late November 2025 that Dharmapala had accepted complimentary tickets from a state-owned bank – an entity audited by his department – to attend the Kandy Esala Perahera.
Unprecedented situation
Though minor in substance and untested through any formal inquiry, the allegation proved sufficient for some Constitutional Council members to oppose even an extension of his acting tenure. The result has been unprecedented: Sri Lanka is now without either a permanent or acting Auditor General.
The institutional consequences of this vacuum are profound. The Audit Service Commission, chaired by the Auditor General, has been unable to function. Parliamentary oversight bodies such as Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE) and the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) have been deprived of formally constituted audit reports.
At a time when Sri Lanka is navigating an IMF-backed recovery programme, negotiating debt restructuring and seeking international assistance following the devastation of Cyclone Ditwah, the absence of a credible audit authority undermines both domestic accountability and external confidence. It is difficult to persuade citizens, investors and donors to trust the stewardship of public funds when the constitutional office charged with scrutinising that stewardship is effectively paralysed seemingly by design.
This is where the shadow of the ‘323 containers’ scandal looms large. In January 2025, revelations emerged that hundreds of shipping containers – some reports suggest a higher number deemed “high risk” – were released from the Colombo Port without physical inspection by Customs. Officials justified the move as an emergency measure to ease congestion.
The Opposition alleges that the beneficiaries were politically connected importers and that the episode resulted in massive revenue losses and potential entry of restricted goods. Crucially, the Auditor General possesses the authority to conduct forensic and post-clearance audits of Customs operations. In the absence of an empowered, independent Auditor General, that authority remains theoretical.
Damaging perception
It is this linkage that fuels the Opposition’s claim of a deliberate cover-up. Whether or not such allegations can be substantiated, the perception itself is damaging. Governance does not rest solely on legality; it rests on credibility as well. When a government that campaigned on transparency appears unable or unwilling to ensure robust oversight of a major scandal, scepticism turns into suspicion.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has recognised this danger. In a formal letter to the President, the BASL has warned that the prolonged vacancy threatens the constitutional mandate of the Auditor General and erodes public confidence at a critical juncture. Its call is notable not for its political alignment but for its institutional clarity: accountability mechanisms must function regardless of who holds power. The BASL’s intervention reflects a broader unease within professional circles that the rules of governance are being bent in the name of reform.
That unease extends beyond the Auditor General’s office. Critics increasingly speak of a wider pattern of ‘NPP-ization’ of the state, in which loyalists or ideologically aligned figures are installed across key institutions. The government does not deny its desire to place trusted individuals in positions of authority. It argues that a decisive electoral mandate entitles it to reshape institutions that, in its view, were captured by entrenched elites and resistant to change. The tension lies in where reform ends and politicisation begins.
Nowhere is this tension more evident than in the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, ground zero of the container controversy. Appointments made in early 2025 to the SLPA’s top leadership have been criticised for their proximity to the NPP’s professional networks. Opposition figures allege that these appointments were designed not merely to improve efficiency but to manage political fallout. The fact that the SLPA leadership has since been summoned before parliamentary oversight committees underscores that concerns about governance have not been allayed.
Red flags for investors
Similar questions surround the Board of Investment, where structural reform has stalled and ad hoc committees staffed by NPP-aligned academics have taken center stage. Investors, already wary after years of policy volatility, have flagged regulatory unpredictability. In an economy desperate for stable inflows, perception matters as much as intent.
Independent commissions, the supposed crown jewels of post-21st Amendment governance, have also come under strain. The Right to Information Commission’s reported lack of resources has prompted allegations that transparency is being quietly suffocated through neglect rather than overt repeal. Meanwhile, frustration within government ranks with the Constitutional Council’s assertiveness has spilled into public calls for altering its composition to ensure a “government majority.” Such proposals strike at the heart of the Council’s purpose, which is to act as a check, not an echo.
Even in areas where the NPP initially signalled restraint, such as the Central Bank and Treasury, concerns have emerged. The appointment of Presidential advisers who reportedly bypass established hierarchies has led to accusations of a ‘shadow treasury’ operating outside constitutional safeguards. Whether or not this characterisation is fair, it reflects a growing anxiety among career civil servants about the erosion of institutional norms under the NPP.
The cumulative effect of these developments is an evolving crisis anchored around the promise of ‘system change.’ For supporters of the NPP, change means breaking with a corrupt past, dismantling networks of privilege and asserting democratic control over the state. For critics, change is beginning to resemble a rotation of elites rather than a transformation of rules. The defeat of the Colombo Municipal Council budget just before Christmas, despite the government’s parliamentary strength, suggests that resistance to this approach is not confined to the Opposition benches.
Meanwhile, reverting back to the mounting allegations that the NPP administration is systematically weakening the Right to Information Commission, it seems that this is being done not through overt legislative assault but through the quieter, more insidious tactic of resource starvation. The Right to Information Act was one of the few post-2015 reforms that demonstrably empowered citizens, journalists and civil society to scrutinise the state.
Text book neutralization
By design, it was meant to function as a low-cost but high-impact safeguard against secrecy and abuse. Today, however, the Commission reportedly struggles with inadequate staffing, delayed appointments, budgetary constraints and an administrative backlog that has rendered timely disclosure increasingly elusive. In governance terms, this is a textbook case of neutralising an institution without formally dismantling it.
The implications are serious. Transparency mechanisms are only as effective as their operational capacity. A Right to Information Commission that cannot process appeals, enforce compliance or withstand political pressure becomes transparent in name alone – a far cry from what the NPP preached pre-election.
Critics argue that this erosion is particularly dangerous in the current climate, where major procurement decisions, emergency spending related to disaster recovery, port operations and state-owned enterprise management demand heightened scrutiny. It goes without saying that when information flows are constricted, accountability does not disappear but merely retreats into opacity, where suspicion thrives and public confidence deteriorates.
What makes these allegations especially damaging is their contradiction of the NPP’s own founding narrative. A movement that rose to prominence by the promise to expose corruption, challenge secrecy and mobilise public outrage against elite impunity, is now finding itself accused of tolerating, or even engineering, institutional silence.
System change Litmus test
Democracies rarely collapse through dramatic coups against transparency, rather they erode when watchdogs are allowed to wither quietly through trimmed budgets, prolonged vacancies and blurred mandates. The fate of the Right to Information Commission, much like that of the Auditor General’s office, has therefore become a litmus test of whether ‘system change’ in Sri Lanka is intended to deepen democratic oversight, or manage it.
Ultimately, the standoff over the Auditor General is a test not of administrative efficiency but of democratic maturity. A government confident in its integrity should have nothing to fear from an independent auditor. Indeed, it should welcome rigorous scrutiny as validation of its claims. Conversely, an oversight system starved of leadership invites speculation, undermines reform and weakens the very mandate the government seeks to uphold.
Sri Lanka’s recovery – economic, institutional and moral – cannot be built on rhetoric alone. It requires consistent adherence to the rule of law, respect for independent institutions and an understanding that trust, once lost, is painfully slow to rebuild. The Auditor General’s office is not a prize to be won in a political contest, rather it is a constitutionally mandated public watchdog that must be safeguarded.
How this impasse is resolved will signal whether ‘system change’ is to mean deeper accountability or merely a different set of hands on the levers of power. Exhausted by crises and yearning for stability, that signal matters more than ever in Sri Lanka’s current context.
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