Editorial
The foregone conclusion
The result of the no confidence motion on Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene was a foregone conclusion. There was no breaking of ranks either on the government or the opposition side of the House nor abstentions and the only matter of interest was who opted to stay away at voting time and why. NPP/JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake whose contribution to the debate was a two-fisted attack, including pointed reference to the number of Yapa Abeywardenes on the speaker’s personal staff and the fact that his (the speaker’s) son was Chairman of the National Lotteries Board under the purview of the finance ministry (the president is the finance minister) was damning enough that it was not necessary that he cast his vote. AKD had to board a flight to Canada and did not vote.
The speaker who confined much of his post debate statement to the substance of the motion itself maintained a diplomatic silence on the number of his family members in the parliamentary staff. He did say that the three day debate would have cost the taxpayer a tidy Rs. 45 million but made no mention of the many million in pay and perks going into the pockets of his kith and kin. The present incumbent of the speaker’s chair is not the first to face such a motion. As he himself revealed, he was the fifth speaker to face such an ordeal, if ordeal it was, but was the first to be accused of violating the constitution.
Speaker Yapa Abeywardene, like former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his recently published book opted to name no names although he was free with his claim that he was under domestic and international pressure to assume the presidency when GR was going, going but not quite gone. Sri Lanka’s precedence table ranks the speaker behind the president and prime minister. The speaker says GR consulted him about the handover of power but did not says whether this was before or after RW was made prime minister – a vitally relevant factor. Wimal Weerawansa in his book alleged that U.S. Ambassador Julie Chung visited the speaker’s residence to persuade him to take over. The speaker maintained a studious silence on the subject although Chung tweeted “I am disappointed that an MP has made baseless allegations and spread outright lies in a book that should be labeled ‘fiction’. But the speaker’s post-budget statement on Thursday about international pressure may lend a degree of credence to Weerawansa’s allegation.
There is no doubt that speakers are generally elected by governments as Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene was. It is also true that speakers let the opposition have their say and the government have its way to preserve even a veneer of impartiality. It is good parliamentary practice that they shed their political allegiances no sooner they attain office. How often that happens is anybody’s guess but it is known that former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya never stepped into Sirikotha after his elevation.
Governor’s conundrum
We run a front page report in our newspaper today that Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe had accepted the report of the Committee of Public Finance (COPF) that the recent across the board (governor excluded) Central Bank salary increases should be withheld until some agreement is reached between the bank and COPF. But the problem is that the March salaries are already in the bank’s payroll system and payment is due on Monday. He has said that adjustment will take a little time. Also, going back to previous pay scales would mean that some officials will get a “negative pay” and that must be cleared with them before imposing the burden.
The report quotes the governor asking COPF to give the bank some guidance on how to set about doing this. Dr. Harsha de Silva, the opposition SJB MP who chairs COPF is on recent record saying that what was at issue was not the increase but the size of the increase and the timing. De Silva has said he will put the bank’s request to the committee on whether to allow the March increase and thereafter hold off until “we arrive at an acceptable resolution.” He agrees that the two sides should work together to find an acceptable solution. Happily the exchanges between the Central Bank and COPF have been cordial.
This is perhaps attributable to both the governor and Dr. Harsha de Silva adopting non-confrontational stances towards each other.
In an interview published on Thursday by our stablemate, The Island, Governor Weerasinghe went on record that he got no raise as a result of the recent arrangement. The increases only applied to deputy governor level and the governor’s salary was lower than that of many other staff including the lower grades. “I have no complaint at all about my salary as I hold this position only due to my desire to help the economy to recover from its worst crisis using my experience and knowledge as a career central banker,” he has said. He added that he will make no pension claim for his tenure as governor. Weerasinghe retired as a deputy governor and enjoyed pension benefits on that basis until he returned to the bank on invitation post-retirement.
For reasons that remain officially unexplained, the previous administration of the bank made former governors eligible for pension regardless of their tenure. However, the incumbent revealed that some of them have refused to claim their entitlements but did not say who they are. Prof. W.D. Lakshman who last headed the bank served for less than two years between December 2019 and September 2021. Mr. Nivard Cabraal had two spells as governor between July 2006 and Jan. 2015 and again between Sept. 2021 and April 2022. Former Hayleys Chairman Sunil Mendis served just less than two years between July 2004 and June 2006. Arjuna Mahendran also served less than two years between Jan. 2015 and June 2016.
It won’t be too hard to guess who among the short tenure governors have declined their pensions.
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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