We will have quite a bit of fun following the debate around the proposed Financial Crimes Commission (FCC). This new institution will be the panacea to all financial crimes – fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery and corruption, insider trading and cybercrime. All these ills will vanish if only the opposition could agree to help the government fight crime. Minister of Financial Services Mahen Seeruttun qualified this institution as “proof of Government’s willingness to introduce new legislation to fight financial crime efficiently”.

How? “Through combining and harmonising all the institutions that have the same purpose of fighting financial crimes,” the minister told l’express. Which institutions exactly are we talking about? The Financial Services Commission, another specialised institution that, too often, looks the other way when there are real financial crimes? Ask David Franklin who lost Rs200 million in five weeks through expert magic. Or maybe the Financial Intelligence Unit? No, these will remain under the Prime Minister’s Office. What is left is the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) itself.

There is no doubt that the ICAC is now perceived more as a laundering machine than a credible institution bent on cleaning the country of financial crimes. If you have any doubt, here is its track record as compiled by my colleagues in l’express:

Budget: Rs1,1 billion (billion!) in the last five years! Rs211 million in one single year, between 2021 and 2022. Out of those Rs211 million, Rs180 million went into salaries, overseas trips and other benefits of the lucky ones at the organisation.

Cases nicely ironed and stacked in the deep drawers: Angus Road – eight years – the Rs700 million Saint Louis gate – three years – Kistnen’s murder and the constituency clerk saga – two and a half years – Franklin and his friends in government, Molnupiravir, Alvaro Sobrinho, Pack & Blister, the childhood friend Neeta Nuckchhed, Bet365, CPN Distributors and the faulty ventilators paid for in advance …to mention but a tiny fraction of the scandals that have rocked this government.  

Output: two prison sentences in the whole year of 2021-2022, including that of a cop asking for a Rs5,000 bribe from a drunken motorist was prosecuted! Hallelujah! If anyone had asked me for my opinion, the cynical me would have happily given the Rs5,000 to the cop who asked for the bribe and perhaps another Rs5,000 or Rs10,000 more, extended a helping hand to the drunkard who fell in the ditch so he could find another ditch to fall into and closed down the ICAC. Imagine the amount of money we would save the country, and the amount of time and frustration we would have spared those who still believe that there is an institution investigating and fighting corruption!

The ICAC’s track record is such that, replying to a Private Notice Question about the number of convictions obtained since 2019, the prime minister embarrassedly said that the aim of the ICAC is “not to obtain convictions at any cost” but rather to educate and sensitise the public. So, this institution may well comprise, by far, the least pedagogically qualified and most highly paid teachers in the universe.

But watch how all these shortcomings will be spun as the debate about the FCC starts. Superlatives will fly around and great intentions will be declared. The opposition will be guilt tripped for suggesting that good money will be thrown after bad. Those who are involved in serious allegations of corruption will stand up, take the moral high ground and preach about the government’s vision to put an end to corruption. You might even fall under the illusion that the rampant corruption around us will suddenly be wiped out by simply creating a new institution.

Whatever the institution is called, whatever other institutions will be incorporated in it, the only two things which matter in making a dent in corruption and other financial crimes are: who will be appointed to head it and who will appoint them. The lengthy debates about the government’s intentions are irrelevant. The ICAC by any other name will still be the ICAC.