Addressing SriLankan Airlines' long trail of corruption

THE recent arrest of Nishantha Wickremesinghe, former chairman of SriLankan Airlines and brother-in-law of ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a long-overdue development that hopefully will be a turning point in addressing the long list of woes of the national carrier. His appointment, despite lacking even a basic General Certificate of Education (Ordinary Level) qualification, symbolises the dangerous cocktail of nepotism, incompetence, and corruption that had wrecked not just the national airline, but much of the country's public institutions.

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Wickremesinghe's tenure as chairman is nothing short of a textbook case in how not to run a national asset. Appointed solely due to his family ties to the then-president, he had neither the educational background nor the professional experience to oversee an international carrier. Unsurprisingly, the results were catastrophic. Under his leadership, SriLankan Airlines became a bloated, loss-making enterprise riddled with shady deals and mismanagement. The airline, which once held promise of transforming Sri Lanka to a regional hub, today bleeds taxpayer money and continues to be a liability for the Treasury.