One of the quieter but more celebrated announcements following the recent cyclone response was the launch of an online platform tracking damage, aid flows, and reconstruction progress. Transparency, we are told, has finally arrived — digitised, searchable, and publicly accessible.
This is progress. But it is also a familiar substitution.
Sri Lanka has become adept at replacing accountability with visibility. Dashboards multiply while outcomes stagnate. Data is displayed while decisions remain opaque. Transparency is treated as an endpoint rather than a mechanism.
The real question is not whether citizens can see reconstruction projects, but whether they can question them.
Who selected the contractors? On what basis were projects prioritised? What procurement exceptions were invoked under emergency powers? What cost benchmarks apply? Dashboards rarely answer these questions. They show outputs, not judgments.
Disaster response systems thrive on urgency. That urgency justifies speed. Speed erodes scrutiny. Digital platforms are then introduced to reassure the public that nothing improper occurred — after the money has already moved.
This pattern is not unique to Sri Lanka, but it is particularly entrenched here. Technology is deployed as a reputational shield rather than a governance tool.
True transparency would mean:
Publishing procurement contracts in real time Disclosing variation orders
Explaining deviations from standard tender procedures
Naming accountable officers, not just agencies
Until then, dashboards remain optical governance — useful, modern, and insufficient.
The danger is complacency. Citizens begin to equate online visibility with institutional reform. They are not the same.
Transparency without consequence is theatre. Accountability begins where dashboards end.
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