Senior education official nabbed for bribery

Ranil Wijayapala

TRINCOMALEE: The Permanent Secretary to the Eastern Province Education Ministry was taken into custody by officers of the Bribery Commission in Trincomalee yesterday as he was accepting a Rs.50,000 bribe from a volunteer teacher to recruit him to the permanent cadre.

Director Investigations of the Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption, SSP Neville Guruge told the Daily News that the Provincial Education Ministry Secretary was the most senior public servant arrested by them in the recent past.

According to Guruge, the Secretary has asked Rs.200,000 from each volunteer teacher who had sought permanent appointments under the current process of giving permanent appointments for volunteer teachers.

“We made this arrest after acting on a complaint by a volunteer teacher in Kalmunai,” SSP Guruge added.

According to SSP Guruge the permanent secretary had initially asked the teacher to pay Rs.100,000 as an advance and to pay the balance Rs.100,000 after receiving the permanent appointment.However, after explanation by the volunteer teacher about his economic situation, the Secretary has agreed to accept Rs.50,000 advance from him and to receive the balance once he gets the appointment.

The volunteer teacher had come all the way from Kalmunai to Trincomalee on Tuesday night to pay Rs.50,000 to the Secretary and the investigative officers from Colombo were dispatched there on Tuesday night. The Secretary was arrested at his office along with his assistant, who had accompanied the volunteer teacher to the Secretary.

The assistant was arrested on the charge of helping a person to provide a bribe to a public servant.

The Secretary and his assistant were due be to produced before Kantale Magistrate yesterday afternoon.

The Bribery Commission has made several successful raids and has arrested 27 Government servants for soliciting and accepting bribes this year.

The Commission has arrested seven school principals, two Vice Principals and four teachers for accepting bribes from parents to facilitate the admission of their children to Grade One.