Editorial
Cash from wonder herb Komarika
Many years ago President Ranasinghe Premadasa had a favourite slogan: “Big investor, small producer.” This related to a strategy of helping the rural agricultural community of this country, comprising a very large segment of Sri Lanka’s population, to enhance their incomes and lifestyles by cultivating largely non-traditional crops. What the president, well known for his genius of addressing and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, was looking for was largely private sector investment for establishing processing factories, nurseries and extension services that would provide guaranteed markets for outgrower agricultural production. Another such project with Aloe Vera, a wonder herb, (Sinhala Komarika) is now in the pipeline.
This fleshy, cactus-like plant, ubiquitous in many home gardens in the country, has been known for centuries for its medicinal, skincare and a myriad of properties. It is used as a treatment for heartburn, as an alternative mouthwash, blood sugar, digestion and even in the treatment of breast cancer. It has been in the Ayuveda Materia Medica for eons and is a common home remedy for burns. Its many amazing properties are being continuously unlocked and, with today’s appetite for natural products, commands a market worth billions of dollars in the western world. We in Sri Lanka and our South Asian neighbors are very familiar with the manifold uses of this herb which grows well even in the dry zone areas of our country.
The government has approved a USD 783 million project to commercially grow the herb in the Anuradhapura district targeting abundant export markets. This involves leasing 66 acres of government land to a company called Aura Lanka Herbals (Pvt) Ltd. owned by a businessman named Viranjith Thambugala. It’s website claims that it is the largest privately-owned agro project in the country with a focus on finding and identifying bare land not cultivable due to the lack of water. Aura is confident that the very ambitious project of a diversified business group that’s into many other areas including gems, will create thousands of job opportunities. The capital investment for this project according to the Government Information Department is USD 300 million. It envisages harnessing privately owned and government-granted land and the business plan appears to be a modern processing factory, plant nursery and outgrower mobilization model used before by Pelwatte Sugar and others.
Long before Mr. Premadasa and his ‘Big investor, small producer’ model germinated, the Ceylon Tobacco Company owned by the giant multi-national, British American Tobacco (BAT), succeeded in eliminating the need for importing tobacco leaf for their super-profitable cigarette manufacturing business by ensuring that small farmers grew the tobacco they needed right here in Sri Lanka. A surplus was produced making possible tobacco leaf exports to other BAT production units of their sprawling global business empire. Ceylon Tobacco did not build large factories for this purpose but funded tobacco curing barns owned by small entrepreneur in the growing areas. Farmers were provided with extension services helping them to improve both the quality and quantity of their product purchased at guaranteed prices to supply the cigarette factory in Colombo. This proved to be a huge success benefiting all stakeholders.
There is no need to belabor the fact that tobacco is a most harmful industry. Ironclad evidence of this has been widely disseminated for several decades. Yet the tobacco industry continues to survive on the face of the earth on a flimsy argument that smoking is an adult choice. Despite regulatory measures worldwide, including health warnings on cigarette packs, and the price stick that has been long used in many countries including ours to make smoking a most expensive habit, people continue to smoke out of nicotine addiction or plain stupidity. Governments worldwide reap enormous revenue from sky high ‘sin’ taxes on tobacco. Cigarette manufacturers propagandize their massive tax payments to governments, including our own, to hammer home the message that they provide a significant slice of government revenue. The counter argument that smoking costs the healthcare system more than the revenue it generates is commonly bruited. Be that as it may, tobacco growing in Sri Lanka is now discouraged if not prohibited altogether, and the early story is now history.
There have been other successes in diversifying non-traditional agriculture by private investment encouraging production. One example is gherkins which are widely grown in our country for processing the pickles that are an essential relish in hamburgers. Readers would know that these are finger-length cucumbers pickled in brine that are unsuitable if they grow too long. Our supermarkets have long stocked the over-sized gherkins which, though unsuitable for export pickles are widely used for salads and other preparations. Hayleys was among the companies that pioneered this thriving business and commands a dominant market share in this product that has greatly benefited farmers here. There are other players too catering to the global demand for pickled gherkins.
Pelwatte Sugar which attracted investment from a global giant, Booker Tate, and other government-owned sugarcane growing and processing projects, despite massive tax and other incentives did not take the country anywhere close to the envisaged self-sufficiency. What happened was that the potable alcohol byproduct of sugar molasses proved more profitable than the production of sugar. Pelwatte is now back in government hands. Although it does provide an income for peasant outgrowers in the Moneragala district, among the poorest in the country, they have not been able to lift themselves above subsistence levels of existence. Like sugar, the new aloe vera project looks promising on paper. Hopefully it will achieve the desired result.
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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