ACCOUNTABILITY • ORIGINAL ANALYSIS • 20 SEPTEMBER 2026

Anti-corruption promises need a public scorecard, not just a launch

Sri Lanka has anti-corruption laws, institutions and action plans. The public-interest question is whether citizens can easily see which commitments have been completed, delayed or abandoned.

CIABOC has described a national anti-corruption action-planning process that included public-sector, private-sector, civil-society, media, youth, religious and community participation. The Anti-Corruption Act No. 9 of 2023 also strengthened the formal framework within which the Commission operates.

Plans and consultations matter, but accountability becomes much stronger when implementation can be tracked without specialist knowledge. A public scorecard could list each commitment, the responsible institution, the legal or administrative action required, the target date, the current status and the evidence supporting that status.

What a useful scorecard would show

For example: has a promised regulation been gazetted? Has a new declaration or procurement system actually gone live? Has a reporting deadline been met? Has an agency published the data it promised to publish? If a milestone has moved, what reason was given and who authorised the change?

This is not a demand that every target be completed instantly. Some reforms legitimately take time. The point is that delay should be visible, explained and documented instead of disappearing into political argument.

Why this matters beyond party politics

Anti-corruption systems are most credible when they survive changes of government. A transparent public dashboard would allow the same standard to be used for the present administration and any future administration. It would also help journalists, researchers and citizens distinguish allegations from measurable institutional performance.

A plan tells the public what government intends to do. A scorecard tells the public what actually happened.