Editorial
Stolen funds and gullible public
Wednesday 9th November, 2022
The SLPP dissidents have stressed the need to secure international assistance to recover Sri Lanka’s stolen funds, and adopt measures to ensure that revenue from taxes and tariffs will not end up in the ruling politicians’ offshore accounts. One cannot but agree with them. Their call must have struck a responsive chord with the resentful public. But even if the incumbent regime is dislodged, the next government is not likely to go the whole hog to recover the stolen public funds, for the politicians currently in opposition, save a few, are as corrupt as their ruling party counterparts; they will make up for lost time instead of trying to catch thieves. The question is how advisable it is for the public to depend on politicians to investigate the corrupt and bring back the stolen national wealth?
The UNP-led Yahapalana government (2015-2019) came to power, promising to bring the corrupt to justice and confiscate the stolen funds, and went so far as to set up the FCID (Financial Crimes Investigation Division) and have some prominent members of the Rajapaksa regime arrested. But nobody has been jailed and no stolen funds have been recovered. Today, the UNP and the Rajapaksas are sharing power!
One should not labour under the delusion that only politicians are corrupt and vile, and if we manage to rein them in, hey presto, the country will be a better place to live in. There is no gainsaying that taming them is half the battle in achieving national progress, but there are many others exploiting the public, and they, too, need to be severely dealt with. Bakers, eatery owners, private bus and school vehicle operators, truckers, and taxi drivers make the most of the increases in the prices of essential commodities and services by effecting disproportionate increases to the prices of their products and services. Private hospitals fleece the sick, and traders exploit consumers with impunity. Shirkers abound in the state sector, which has become synonymous with inefficiency, lethargy and corruption. Political reforms alone will not help address these problems.
The task of ridding the country of corruption is too serious to be left entirely to politicians, who themselves are corrupt, bar a few. Social reforms are a prerequisite for cleansing politics. Hence the need for a powerful, inclusive social movement transcending divisive politics to bring about a radical attitudinal change in Sri Lankans, who ‘suffer the corrupt gladly’! Aragalaya came close to being such a movement but unfortunately it became politicised and thereby polluted.
Unless the patriotic Sri Lankans who are genuinely desirous of enthroning good governance and achieving economic prosperity are mobilised to sink their political differences and join forces to facilitate the emergence of a new socio-political culture, progress will continue to elude this country, with the corrupt voted out of power making comebacks. This, we believe, is a task for social reformers, who alone can bring all people together to fight for their rights.
Politics has become a religion of sorts here, and corrupt politicians are adept at pulling the wool over the eyes of the gullible public and regaining power, the way the Rajapaksas did after the 2015 regime change; they are doing their damnedest to take the people for a ride again and consolidate their hold on power. They might succeed in their endeavour unless a social reform movement is launched urgently parallel to the efforts being made to change the political system. We ought to learn from the experience of the Philippines, where the son of a dictator ousted by the people more than three decades ago has become the President.
The People Power Revolution, on which Aragalaya was modelled, helped the Filipinos to put an end to the oppressive Marcos regime in 1986. President Ferdinand Marcos and his family became a metaphor for corruption and abuse of power. They also earned notoriety for their extravagant and opulent lifestyles. When protesters stormed the Presidential Palace, they found more than 2,000 pairs of expensive shoes left behind by First Lady Imelda. But about 36 years on, the former dictator’s son, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos (aka Bongbong), has become the President!
The only thing Bongbong had to flaunt during his presidential election campaign was the fact that he was the ousted dictator’s son! Interestingly, the Marcos government used to boast that it had built more roads than all its predecessors combined. A young member of the Rajapaksa family has recently made a similar claim. The need for a truly social movement to educate and empower the Sri Lanka public so that they will not emulate the Filipinos cannot be overstated.
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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