Muck, bucks and impunity – II

Wednesday 30th December, 2020

Importers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law have to face legal action. Most of them have to pay heavy fines. But, strangely, those who imported hazardous foreign waste have gone scot free to all intents and purposes. Only 21 out of 263 shipping containers of British garbage including hospital waste, brought here in 2018 and 2019 have been shipped back to the UK.

Legal action has not yet been taken against the importers of British waste, according to a news item in yesterday’s edition of this newspaper, quoting Director of the Sri Lanka Customs Sunil Jayaratne. He has claimed that COVID-19 has delayed the investigation, and the police will be called in to assist the Customs in conducting the probe.

The Customs, no doubt, deserve praise for refusing to release the containers of foreign rubbish. But, why they have not taken legal action against the errant importers of rubbish is the question. The pandemic cannot be blamed for the delay in the investigation into the foreign waste imports. The law becomes a sparrow when offenders happen to be Opposition politicians or activists; it is a snail when the transgressors happen to be moneybags with links to the powers that be. The signs are that the waste importers are trying to derail the probe.

The police have earned notoriety for being a pliable tool in the hands of the politicians in power. They conduct most investigations at a politically determined pace and invariably baulk at taking action against those shielded by the ruling party. Thus, it is doubtful whether they will act independently and help institute legal action against the importers of foreign waste.

The Central Environmental Authority (CEA), too, has also not taken action against the company that imported British waste. Environment Minister Mahinda Amaraweera, contacted by this newspaper for comment, has trotted out some lame excuses and promised action. He has evinced a keen interest in protecting the environment and cannot be held responsible for the waste imports under the previous government, but has to ensure that the CEA carries out its duties and functions properly.

The failure on the part of the Customs and the CEA to take action against the importers of British garbage may have emboldened others to import agricultural waste from Ukraine. At this rate, there will be no end to waste imports.

Issues crop up at such a pace in this country that neither the public nor the media can keep track of them properly. New issues eclipse old ones, which cease to interest anyone with the passage of time. It looks as if the consignment of hazardous foreign waste is being kept at the Colombo Port until the issue fades into oblivion so that it can be taken out and disposed of. Or, perhaps, the waste may disappear with empty containers sitting in the port premises. Anything is possible in this country. Time was when a prominent politician was accused of having swallowed a ship whole under the JRJ government. Lamborghinis that used to roar down the city streets disappeared into thin air following the 2015 regime change. The yahapalana government even carried out excavations in some parts of the country in search of those expensive cars, but in vain. So, the possibility of the British and Ukrainian waste disappearing in a similar manner cannot be ruled out.

Environmentalists and the media should take up the foreign waste issue again and flog it hard to crank up pressure on the Customs and the CEA to take legal action against the culprits expeditiously.

The incumbent government bellows its one-country-one-law slogan to the point of queasiness, but the importers of hazardous waste remain above the law for all practical purposes.