Editorial
Govt. advertises its failure
Wednesday 18th January, 2023
The SLPP-UNP government has proved its rivals’ claim that it has failed. Its grandees never miss an opportunity to boast that their efforts to tackle the economic crisis have shown signs of reaching fruition soon. But Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Bandula Gunawardena has revealed the truth. Announcing some Cabinet decisions, at yesterday’s press briefing, he disclosed that for the first time in the history of Sri Lanka the payment of salaries of some state workers would be delayed for want of funds.
Claiming that the government revenue for December 2022 had been only Rs. 141 billion, Minister Gunawardena said the state sector salaries, pensions, social welfare, medicines, etc., had cost as much as Rs. 154 billion, and another Rs. 182 billion had been paid as loan interests. The government had been compelled to print more money as a result, Gunawardena said.
The government has left no stone unturned in its efforts to increase its revenue. It has jacked up taxes, water and power tariffs and the prices of petroleum products exponentially and is all out to increase electricity prices again. These extreme measures have boosted the state revenue as never before. The government has also defaulted on external debt, and resorted to import restrictions and fuel rationing. But it has, on its own admission, failed to make even a dent in the economic crisis, despite the drastic measures it has adopted in the name of economic recovery. Thus, there is no guarantee that, at this rate, it will be able to hoist the country out of the current economic crisis. Odds are that the people will have to wait until hell freezes over to witness economic recovery if the current dispensation manages to stay in power. Above all, how many more increases in taxes, tariffs and fuel prices will have to be there before the government can ensure, if at all, that there are enough funds to meet essential expenses? A petti kade mudalali would perhaps have done a better job than the current administration. This is something the public should bear in mind when they vote at future elections.
Now that Minister Gunawardena has revealed that it is extremely difficult to pay the state sector salaries, pensions, etc., and allocate funds for the health sector, the government ought to adopt austerity measures forthwith. Its leaders must cut down on their expenses and set an example to others. They have to curtail unnecessary travel, which costs the public an arm and a leg, and forgo their entertainment allowances. They are seen travelling across the country and around the world while hospitals are experiencing drug shortages and school children are skipping meals and fainting. It amounts to a criminal waste of people’s money to feed horizontally-gifted MPs at Temple Trees, etc., while children are starving and the sick are without medicine. Serious thought should be given to reducing the number of ministers immediately, for these parasitic elements are a burden on the country. That the people cannot afford a bigger Cabinet goes without saying, and the government must not appoint any more ministers. Fund allocations for Parliament, where most MPs neglect their legislative duties and functions and are not even present during its proceedings, should be reduced. A new law should be brought in to decrease or do away with the monthly allowances paid to the MPs and the local government members.
Ceremonies to be held to mark the 75th Anniversary of Independence are expected to cost the public at least Rs. 200 million. They have to be cancelled in view of the current economic crisis, and Independence can be celebrated in some other way. This is what the government leaders should do immediately if they have any consideration towards the hapless public. Tanzania has shown the way. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, was considerate enough to cancel her country’s Independence Day celebrations, last month, and direct that the funds earmarked for the event be used to construct dormitories at schools for children with special needs. It has been reported that in 2015, the then President of Tanzania John Magufuli cancelled the Independence Day celebrations and allocated funds saved therefrom for the development of roads in Dar es Salaam. He did so again in 2020, and the money allocated for celebrations was used to stock up on medical supplies. In this country like no other, money that should have been spent on treating and feeding poor children at state-run hospitals is being utilised for Independence Day celebrations, which will only help boost the egos of some politicians who pretend to be great patriots despite having ridiculed the armed forces at the height of the country’s war on terror, and planned to celebrate the quincentenary of the arrival of the Portuguese invaders here.
What one gathers from Minister Gunawardena’s disclosure is that the government grandees ought to don sackcloth and ashes and fast, besides practising other forms of grim asceticism by way of penance for having mismanaged the country’s economy and bankrupted it.
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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