First dibs on jab and love for masses

Thursday 18th February, 2021

The national vaccination drive to beat coronavirus is gaining momentum. Thankfully, the frontline health workers have already received the jab, and so have others such as military and police personnel leading the fight against the virus from the front. The process of inoculating the MPs has also got underway, we are told. They must be vaccinated, but why they should get first dibs on the vaccine at the expense of others defies comprehension. There are several categories of workers who deserve to be vaccinated on a priority basis; they include teachers and bus workers.

Some Opposition MPs have refused to receive the jab until the high risks groups are inoculated. Theirs is a principled stand, which deserves praise. The country managed without MPs for months, and they can stay at home if they think they run the risk of contracting COVID-19. Nobody will feel their absence, and, in fact, the country will be able to save a huge amount of public funds spent on parliamentary sittings, where anything worthwhile hardly gets discussed. Let’s give a big round of applause for the Opposition MPs who have turned down special treatment anent the vaccination programme!

There are, however, other ways in which the Opposition lawmakers can show that they really care for the ordinary people, who are struggling to keep the wolf from the door and have to travel in contraptions that pass for buses, or use Shank’s mare. They never miss an opportunity to declare that the poor skip a meal or two, a day, and the situation has taken a turn for the worse under the present dispensation. One cannot but agree with the Opposition that many people are struggling to dull the pangs of hunger, and their lot has to be improved. The prevalence of malnutrition among children below five years shows how acute the nutritional problems in this country are. The last Demographic and Health Survey revealed that 20.5% of children were underweight while wasting and stunting affected 15.1% and 17.3% of them, respectively. These shocking statistics are an indictment on all those who have ruled this country since Independence and are boasting that they have made a tremendous contribution to national ‘progress’. Will the horizontally-gifted MPs who are shedding copious tears for the poor stop having more than two meals a day and use public transport until it is ensured that every Sri Lankan has three square meals daily and can use hassle-free conveyance?

Moreover, the children of the ordinary people attend schools that are not considered ‘popular’; these seats of learning remain underdeveloped because they do not cater to the progeny of the rich and the powerful like the members of Parliament. The Bandaranaikes did not consider the schools in their stronghold (Attanagalla) good enough for their children. The same is true of the Senanayakes. The Rajapaksas did not send their children to schools in Beliatte or Hambantota. Maithripala Sirisena also did not want his children to attend schools in his electorate (Polonnaruwa). Will the Opposition MPs whose hearts are melting for the public send their children to the schools attended by the sons and daughters of ordinary people, and urge their counterparts in the government to follow suit? Then only will they feel the need to develop the deprived schools.

State employees have to work for decades before they become eligible for pension, but the MPs receive retirement benefits after being in Parliament only for five years. Will the Opposition MPs who make a public display of their love for the masses, propose that the eligibility criteria for pension in the state sector be made applicable to the MPs as well?

If the MPs really feel for the people and care to share the latter’s suffering, they need not fear electoral contests; a thousand elections, a thousand victories! Mere words and gimmicks will not do.