Transparency, Not Silence, Is the Best Defence for the NPP
The resignation of Kumara Jayakody and his ministry secretary over the coal procurement controversy should be a wake-up call for the government. It is not enough for ministers to insist they are innocent. In politics, perception can become reality far faster than facts can catch up.
The NPP came to power promising a different political culture: cleaner government, less secrecy and more accountability. That promise is now being tested. The coal saga shows that even when there is no direct allegation that a minister personally benefited from corruption, a government can still suffer severe political damage if it fails to explain itself quickly, clearly and publicly.
According to official statements, the minister resigned to allow an independent investigation into allegations surrounding low-quality coal imports for the country’s power sector. Government figures insisted that procurement rules had been followed and that there was no direct evidence of fraud involving the minister himself.
The deeper lesson for the NPP is not simply about coal. It is about information. In the absence of transparency, opponents, businesses, activists and hostile media networks will fill the vacuum with their own version of events.
Sri Lankan politics has always been shaped by more than ideology. There are rival business interests, long-standing feuds between powerful commercial groups, competition between media houses, and hidden alliances between politicians and corporate actors. When those forces collide, a procurement decision in one ministry can quickly become a national political scandal.
The government appears to have underestimated how quickly this issue could spiral. By the time ministers attempted to defend the coal procurement process, the public narrative had already hardened. Social media, television channels, websites and opposition politicians had already turned the issue into a story of incompetence, secrecy and favouritism.
A major weakness of the government was its inability to produce a simple, transparent record showing exactly what happened: who bid, who won, what the pricing structure was, what technical criteria were used, and why certain suppliers were selected. Without that information available in the public domain, speculation became stronger than evidence.
That is why the NPP should urgently create a public procurement portal. Every ministry, department and state-owned enterprise should be required to publish its tenders, suppliers, contract values, evaluation criteria and procurement decisions in one searchable online database.
Such a portal would not only protect ministers from unfair attacks. It would also protect taxpayers, civil servants and honest businesses. If the public can see the procurement process in real time, then false allegations can be disproved quickly and genuine corruption can be identified more easily.
The government must also understand that some sections of the media are no longer merely reporting stories. They are trying to shape political outcomes. In this case, there appears to have been a broader effort to turn the coal issue into a symbol of NPP failure, regardless of whether there was direct evidence of personal wrongdoing by the minister.
This does not mean the media should be silenced. A democracy needs a strong and aggressive press. But it also means the government cannot remain passive. If ministers do not communicate, others will communicate for them.
The NPP cannot afford to govern with the assumption that facts will eventually win by themselves. In the modern media environment, facts must be presented early, clearly and repeatedly. Otherwise, even an innocent minister can become politically damaged beyond repair.
The coal controversy has already shown how quickly public anger can grow. Anura Kumara Dissanayake has now ordered a wide-ranging investigation into coal procurement dating back many years, while the government has admitted that poor-quality coal affected the output of the country’s main power plant.
There is also a broader political risk. The NPP was elected not merely to manage the state, but to change it. If it acts quickly against its own ministers but slowly against long-standing allegations involving former governments, it risks creating disappointment among its own supporters.
Many ordinary voters will ask a simple question: if the government can move swiftly when one of its own ministers comes under pressure, why does it move so slowly when dealing with allegations linked to older scandals and previous administrations?
The answer for the NPP is not outrage, defensiveness or blame. It is transparency. If the government wants to survive future controversies, it must make sure the public can see how decisions are made before opponents define the story first.