When villains guffaw and heroes whine

Wednesday 23rd June, 2021

A sardonic witticism attributed to Einstein describes insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. How successive Sri Lankan governments have sought to solve the problem of periodic rice shortages created by a group of powerful millers is a textbook example of insanity in the Einsteinian sense. Their modus operandi has been to import rice. Theoretically, this method should work, but it has failed to be a remedy due to market manipulation by the unscrupulous millers, as we have argued in previous comments.

A cartel of millers was making huge profits at the expense of the public to the tune of Rs. 20 a kilo of rice, Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage told Parliament yesterday, claiming that the government was left with no alternative but to import 100,000 MT of rice immediately to bring down prices. He said the government’s paddy stocks had run out.

Aluthgamage, however, made no revelation. That some powerful millers exploit both the farmer and the consumer with impunity is public knowledge.

When the shipments of rice arrive, the big-time millers release some of their stocks, causing prices to fall before the next harvest period. Imported rice does not suit the local consumer’s palate and, therefore, most of it remains unsold in warehouses. Thereafter, the millers’ cartel buys paddy from farmers at extremely low prices, and hoards it causing prices to rise, again. Thus, they get the best of both worlds. The imported rice rotting away in government warehouses goes for a song as animal feed in the end, and those responsible for rice imports laugh all the way to the bank.

The previous government is alleged to have caused a loss of about Rs. 10 billion to the state coffers due to rice imports. Farmers’ associations have accused some key public officials of colluding with the millers’ mafia. How much the state coffers will lose due to rice imports under the present dispensation remains to be seen.

The government must take action to prevent the hoarding of rice and have the hoarded rice released to the market forthwith. Minister of Trade Bandula Gunawardena has gone on record as saying that in dealing with hoarders, the government cannot act like a thug. Curiously, some of the present-day leaders are believed to have a history of having television stations, newspaper printing presses, etc., burnt down and their rivals including journalists killed. How come they act with restraint in handling the rice Mafia? Anyway, if the existing laws lack teeth and do not provide for tough action needed to prevent hoarding, let new ones be made fast to tame the exploitative millers. After all, the government keeps bragging about its two-thirds majority in Parliament, and, therefore, legislating for the people’s interests to be safeguarded should be child’s play for it. The Opposition will have to support such a move or incur much public opprobrium.

The task of taming the millers’ cartel requires urgent action to develop the Paddy Marketing Board, as a national priority, rid it of bribery and corruption, and ensure that small-time millers receive loans to purchase paddy without undue delays. They complain that banks, at the behest of some wealthy millers, delay their loans, and by the time funds are made available, there is hardly any paddy for them to buy.

What makes governments baulk at adopting stern action to tame the rice Mafia is that influential politicians benefit from the largesse of the wealthy millers, who have huge slush funds.

Two of the big-time millers who stand accused of manipulating the prices of rice through hoarding, etc., are closely connected with the present dispensation. They are Dudley Sirisena, younger brother of SLPP MP and former President Maithripala Sirisena, and State Minister Siripala Gamlath, who is related to the Sirisena family. This may explain why the heroes in the current government are all hat and no cattle or ‘float like bees and sting like butterflies’ when they ‘take on’ the rice Mafia.