Editorial
Down the pallang
Sri Lanka is now in the grip of what is probably the worst economic crisis it has known in its post-Independence history. Inflation is at a historic high. The rupee is at a historic low. People are queuing for cooking gas and milk food. The cost of living has gone through the roof and opposition politicians are talking about the price of a single carrot or bean pod. What the ill-thought, almost overnight ban on the import of chemical fertilizers has done to the rural farming community, that massively supported the election of the present regime, is visible in protests countrywide. The government paid off a dollar bond of USD 500 million last week as promised. While there has been no debt default up to now, with Sri Lanka retaining its impeccable repayment record, the bonds were settled in the teeth of opposition by several reputed economists. They urged that it is better to fund vital imports, desperately needed by ordinary people here, than foreign bond holders. Governor Cabraal took another view.
The story goes on. Intermittent power shedding in various parts of the country is a daily occurrence. This has been forced on the CEB by its lack of dollars to pay the CPC to which it is indebted to the tune of billions, to supply its needs. Our only oil refinery at Sapugaskanda is closed as there are no dollars to pay for crude oil to sustain it. The ministers of power and energy, holding two different portfolios when commonsense dictates that the subjects go together, are at each other’s throats. Minister Gammanpila’s argument that it is better to suffer sporadic power cuts rather than face a total blackout down the road is not without merit. He has also to balance the needs of both the transport and power sectors in doling out the little stocks he controls. Judging by his recent statements, he seems to believe that transport deserves priority.
Where do we go from here? Down the pallang, most people fear. It is true that the country has proved resilient facing daunting challenges in the past. Today there are gas queues and milk powder queues highlighted in the evening television news bulletins most days. Older readers would remember many more queues under the dispensation of the Sirima Bandaranaike-led United Front government of which both the LSSP and the Communist Party were constituents. Then there were bread queues, flour queues, sugar queues, rice barriers (best known as haal pollas) and what have you. The 1978 (not 1977 as commonly mis-stated) economic liberalization put an end to the scarcities the people had long suffered. But at a price. A heavy price, some would add.
The Island, our stablemate, in a thought provoking article titled “THE DOLLAR CRISIS: What aggravated it,” provides some pertinent answers to what many consider the root of our problems today. The engineer-writer reminds us that the Gal Oya Scheme, the biggest post-Independence development project undertaken by the government of then Ceylon, was funded by our own resources. Then in the 1950s, this country (still Ceylon) undertook the major Colombo Harbour Development Scheme. Engineer D. Godage, the writer of the article under reference, says that made the Port of Colombo one of most modern (probably regional) ports of the time. The late Mr. Tissa Chandrasoma, a reputed civil servant of the day who headed the Port Commission and held several other port related jobs , says there were plans to develop Trincomalee port too at the time. Given the strategic location of what remains one of the world’s finest natural harbours, and the proximate British built tank farm providing massive storage capacity, forging ahead with such a project may have propelled Sri Lanka to where Singapore presently is as the regional shipping hub.
We were fortunate that the global scene as it was in the seventies enabled the 1977 government of President J.R. Jayewardene to compress the massive Mahaweli Development irrigation and hydro-electricity project from the planned 30 years to about six years. This was possible due to the then availability of concessional international credit and grant assistance. The resultant benefits are well known. And they did not lead us to the debt crisis, or debt trap as some would have it, of today. The borrowing sprees that followed to fund what have been described as mere vanity projects to satisfy the egos of elected political leaders, are a different kettle of fish. Several of these are named after the then president and are located in his home turf of Hambantota.
While it is true that the major highways paid for with borrowed funds and built at massive cost has improved connectivity in this island of ours, whether they are earning their keep and paying their way is an open question. So also the Norochcholai coal power plant with a record of frequent breakdowns and environmental cost. There is no question that with the rising demand for power of more recent years have been met thanks to Norochcholai. According to a 2016 report of the External Resources Department cited by the author of the ‘dollar crisis’ article, 28 projects costing approx. USD 7.8 billion were funded by China’s Exim Bank at interest rates speculated to be around six percent. All these are “said to have been” initiated by unsolicited tender, he says. He also quotes a newspaper headline, “Normal tender procedures are not possible for mega projects: PBJ.” The then Treasury Secretary and later Secretary to the President has now left office.
China will be gifting us with a million tons of rice in March to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Rubber-Rice Pact, the newspapers blared last week. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” is a threadbare, albeit proven, cliché. Or is there a free lunch somewhere out there?
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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