‘People left with two choices — either to die or collectively urge the govt. to fight Covid-19’ says FLSP

by Saman Indrajith

The fast spreading Covid-19 virus and the increase in the number of deaths have left people with two choices — either to die or to organize to collectively urge the government to get its act together to fight the pandemic, says the Frontline Socialist Party (FLSP).

Education Secretary of the FLSP, Pubudu Jagoda addressing a media conference on Thursday at its headquarters in Battaramulla said: COVID-19 pandemic showed us where we are as a society. Social injustice is amply displayed. The police would nab a person who goes to a boutique to buy a kilo of rice to feed his children for the offence of violating quarantine curfew while doing nothing against the rich and powerful company owners who blatantly violated the regulations. These company owners ordered their employees who showed symptoms of fever to take paracetamol and continue to work to ensure their profits over the lives of the workers.

These laws are not applicable to hotel owners who let their employees go home without quarantine after knowing that there was a customer infected with COVID-19. Whenever these are questioned, the government authorities have a ready-made answer – that “they are conducting investigations”. There are many thousands of families without food because of the curfew, he claimed.

The government should provide relief not only to those living in the areas where curfew was declared, but also thousands of daily wage earners who have no means to support their families because they have no work. The self-employed, businessmen, small and medium scale industrialists need several months to settle their dues on lease commitements. The government should grant relief to them, he added.

“How is the government behaving in the face of crisis? It could have contained the virus spreading from Minuwangoda if it had acted swiftly when the first infected case was detected. But it succumbed to the pressure from the company owners and did not shut down the area. When there were reports of infected cases in a single factory, the government did not close the free trade zone. As a result, it spread to many other workers, Jagoda asserted.

The government would not look at the issue from a workers’ perspective. This situation cannot be permanently solved without change of the system. But at least now, the government should expand the public health service by providing it with necessary facilities. We have before us the Appropriation Bill 2021 that was gazetted recently. Its allocation for the health ministry is only Rs. 158 billion. In 2019 the allocation was Rs 178 billion. Even in the face of a pandemic, Rs. 20 billion had been reduced from the health ministry allocation, he further said.

“There is no meaning of waiting with the thought the rulers will save our lives. We must unite to urge the government to take action to ensure our safety, while maintaining health guidelines to the maximum. People have to choose the path of struggle to get a bigger allocation for public healthcare and social welfare. But they should keep in mind that these are only short term strategies. Without changing the entire system which nurtures only the capitalist rich, there would be no permanent solution,” Jagoda said.