Cheers and tears

Saturday 26th December, 2020

The Opposition keeps accusing the government of having issued liquor manufacturing licences to four of its cronies. This land like no other is already sozzled to the gills, and it defies comprehension why any more liquor should be manufactured. SJB MP Thushara Indunil Amarasena has told the media that one of the new licence holders sponsored the Viyath Maga events before the 2019 regime change, and described him as a major shareholder of Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo. Payback time is surprisingly short for the moneybags who fund political parties. For those who handed over the army headquarters land to the owners of Shangri-La, amidst protests, issuing a liquor licence to a shareholder of that hotel must be child’s play.

Cronyism is a blight that ruins Sri Lanka. The SJB is not blameless. Its holier-than-thou MPs, shedding copious tears for the hapless public, were in the yahapalana government, which enabled one of its cronies to perpetrate the biggest ever financial fraud in this country. They benefited from the largesse of the Treasury bond scammers.

The government has not taken great pains to counter the Opposition’s claim probably because it knows the people usually do not believe anything until it is officially denied.

Besides the government’s determined efforts to increase the national liquor production, a large-scale meat processing factory, described as the biggest of its kind in South Asia, has been set up here. It is said to have the capacity to meet about 10% of the global demand for processed meat. Thus, the patriotic government has ensured that Sri Lanka will be known the world over hereafter as the source of Theravada Buddhism and processed meat!

A wag says the government seems to be working according to a well-thought-out plan where the production of meat and alcohol is concerned. The country will be self-sufficient in meat products before long because part of the production of the mega meat factory is sure to enter the local market like the so-called export rejects from garment factories. When there is enough meat on the table, people will need something to wash it down with. Hence the government initiative to increase the alcohol production by issuing more liquor manufacturing licences.

There is a problem, though—a very big one at that. The issuance of more liquor manufacturing licences will lead to a sharp increase in the demand for maize, which will be used for producing alcohol, the Opposition has warned. There is already a huge shortfall in the supply of maize, which is one of the ingredients of Thripohsa, a nutritious food supplement given free of charge to pregnant and lactating mothers and undernourished children. Thriposha is believed to have helped meet the nutritional requirements of millions of poor women and children to a considerable extent; much more remains to be done to tackle malnutrition and other such problems. The new liquor licences will adversely affect the production of Thriposha, the Opposition argues.

About 33 percent of pregnant and lactating Sri Lankan women are anaemic according to the Demographic and Health Survey, Sri Lanka (2016) statistics, cited in a World Food Programme report on Sri Lanka. About 40% of children aged 6-12 are underweight. Thus, it is a crime to produce alcohol at the expense of the main food supplement for poor women and children. Alcoholism among Sri Lankan males is one of the reasons for the undernourishment of women and children, for liquor takes a big bite out of the household income of many a family. Now, these poor mothers and children will face a double whammy due to the issuance of new liquor manufacturing licences if they worsen the shortage of the ingredients of Thriposha, as the Opposition claims.

We hope the government leaders, given to lateral thinking, will not ask malnourished women and children to swig beer from their cronies’ factories if maize is not available for producing Thriposha.