MONETABRIEF – Sri Lanka’s heightened anti-corruption drive has led to a "Prison News" segment to keep pace with the continuous arrests of suspects, which President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said would escalate.
Addressing a public rally in Nikaweratiya on Sunday, the President said there would be "no limit" to arrests carried out by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption and the police.
"For about a year after we came into office, people kept asking, 'Where are the files?' Now they say a limit should be placed on the number of thieves who can be arrested. There is no limit to stealing, so there will be no limit to arrests either.
"We will make arrests without limitation. We still have three years ahead of us. We will continue making arrests throughout those three years, and we will continue in the next term as well. No one can steal and hide anywhere in the world.
"We will bring them in, and we will continue bringing them in," the President said to thunderous applause.
He said the aim was to create a country where the law applied equally to everyone.
"Building a country in which the law is applied equally is not easy. When we try to enforce the law fairly, those who were protected by the old system, and those who benefited from that protection, take to the streets and demand that the government be driven out.
"They are not accustomed to living in a country where the law is applied equally to all. But today we have proved that the law applies to everyone. There is no place beyond the reach of the law and no person beyond its reach.
"That is why it has become necessary to create a separate news category called 'Prison News'. That is how extensively the law is now being enforced."
Monetabrief reported last week that more members of the once-powerful Rajapaksa family and their associates are expected to be hauled up under Sri Lanka’s renewed anti-corruption drive, following the arrest of former first lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa.
The former first lady is in remand custody over allegations that funds collected through her Siriliya Saviya charity for a scanner for the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children were misused. Her bail hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, October 13.
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family is facing investigations into alleged corruption, money laundering and misuse of public funds. A separate investigation is also under way into the murder of former rugby player Wasim Thajudeen.
Trade Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe told Parliament on Thursday that the authorities were reviving cases that had stalled a decade ago. (Colombo/October 12/2026)