Editorial
What next?
Given the raging Covid-19 pandemic threatening the entire country at present, Sri Lanka needs the current teachers protests ignoring all preventive protocols like a shot in the head. But there is no sign whatever, as this is being written, of any kind of truce between the teacher and the government. The rulers gave into pressure over the Kotelawela Defence University Bill last week by deferring its scheduled presentation to the legislature sine die. But there has been no backtracking on the teachers’ demands or the ban on the import of chemical fertilizers also attracting loud and crowded protests, Covid notwithstanding. The teachers are on record saying they will not back down. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of pupils in government schools, already hurt by the pandemic restrictions, are not even getting the few distance learning opportunities the teachers say they were providing at their own expense.
Fortunately the government has abandoned its previous heavy-handed approach against teachers and other protesters that saw some teachers’ union leaders roughly arrested and hauled before the courts. They were bailed by the courts but not able to go home as the cops bundled them off to distant quarantine centers where delayed testing found them Covid negative. They were released just before the legal challenge they mounted over this issue was taken up by the courts, obviously because the government feared an adverse determination. The protests continue unabated, perhaps gathering fresh momentum with no signs whatever of any via media being achieved. The previous rough stuff telecast countrywide, perhaps somewhat helped the teachers as there is no formidable display of public anger over their Covid-endangering protests.
Our stablemate, The Island, last week carried a most thought provoking article by a senior retired public official, Mr. K.L.L. Wijeratne, branding the teachers’ pay hike demand “An Unjust Call.” He is eminently qualified to offer an opinion on the subject having long served the Salaries and Cadres Commission, both as Secretary (2006 to 2009) and Chairman from 2016 to 2019. All of us well know that teaching has been a poorly paid profession, perhaps the worst paid, for as long as anyone can remember. During the current wave of protest, teachers’ unions as well as their political backers have been loudly proclaiming that they are paid as little as between Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,500 a day. It wasn’t long ago that plantation workers were granted a thousand rupee daily wage in the teeth of protests by their employers that the industry just could not bear it and will surely be crushed.
We are also familiar with the fact that teachers, unlike most other employees, enjoy the school vacations thrice a year. They also had weekends off at a time the rest of the workforce had only half a day off on Saturdays. Mr. Wijeratne has given the cold, hard facts in his article saying that teachers work 180 five-hour days a year (around 900 hours) whereas other public servants work 240 eight-hour days (around 1,900 hours) a year. You don’t have to be a cynic to believe that the vast number of employees in our bloated public service, teachers or otherwise, put in far fewer hours into their workdays than they are supposed to. It is no doubt unfair to tar the entire public service with the same brush. But conceding that there are many exceptions, the rule is broadly true. We do not know whether there are any figures – though they must be available somewhere – on the gender balance between men and women in the teaching profession. But there is no doubt that a very large number of women have opted for teaching despite the poor compensation as it enables them to better balance their working and family lives.
Mr. Wijeratne has also given a telling example of how politicians, in this case President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the UNP’s late Srima Dissanayake, who was plunged into a presidential election following the tragic assassination of her husband, Gamini Dissanayake, during a presidential election campaign, drop more than a spot of dung into the pot of milk for political advantage. Here he quotes chapter and verse about CBK’s wise and proper approach to the teachers salary issue which has been simmering for the previous several decades. As finance minister, President Kumaratunga had in 1995 offered what the writer calls “well considered observations” on this subject. This was when she had in 1994 obtained cabinet approval for amending an earlier decision to establish a Sri Lanka Teachers’ Service with effect from October 1994 and implement the salary scaled proposed for that service from Jan. 1995. The amendment she proposed and was accepted required reference of the proposed salary scales to the Salaries and Cadres Committee “for a comprehensive examination and report before implementing the proposals.”
But voila what happened? Ms. Srima Dissanayake published a full page newspaper notice in October 1994 promising to implement the proposed salary scale for teachers and restructure the Principals’ Service, Teacher Education Service and Education Administrative Service. CBK gazetted the proposed salary scales the day her rival’s notice appeared, and as Wijeratne says, created the only instance “where salaries were gazetted before establishing a service!” This then was how the game was played and has continued to be played. The tottering economy cannot bear the weight of the demand which will trigger a myriad of similar demands from elsewhere. But seeing how others have won their demands, the teachers will not let go of the opportunity they have seized Covid or no Covid.
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.
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