Tuesday 25th March, 2025

The JVP/NPP government is still upbeat about the passage of its maiden budget with an unprecedented majority of 159 votes. That was no mean achievement, but everybody knew that the ayes would have it. Euphoria invariably gives way to the sobering reality in politics. A serious problem is already looming on the horizon.

The harvesting of Maha season paddy is drawing to a close. It was forecast that the country would be able to produce about 2.9 million MT of paddy during the 2024/2025 Maha season, but the harvest has dropped to about 2.4 million MT, according to Minister of Trade Wasantha Samarasinghe, who told Parliament the other day that the government would not hesitate to import rice, if necessary.

The sharp drop in the Maha paddy harvest is mainly due to floods in rice-growing areas. The government pledged that the Paddy Marketing Board would purchase about 300,000 MT of paddy to build a buffer stock to make market interventions, if necessary, but it could buy only 60 MT of paddy, according to media reports. Paddy farmers’ associations and agricultural experts are warning that rice prices are likely to increase further during the upcoming festive season, and the country will experience a rice shortage towards August 2025. When the government failed to make large-scale millers release adequate rice stocks to the market, last year, it opted for imports, but its leaders thundered in Parliament that they would never import rice again after the 2024/2025 Maha paddy harvest!

Rice, which is also a cultural staple in this part of the world, plays a significant role in Sri Lankan politics, as is public knowledge. The possibility of a rice shortage must therefore be a disconcerting proposition for the JVP/NPP government, with about six weeks to go before the local government elections. All signs are that the much-delayed Provincial Council elections, too, will have to be held either towards the end of this year or in early 2026. The government will have to ensure that rice is freely available at affordable prices.

Having come into being in the mid-1960s, the JVP rose to national prominence circa 1970 by taking on Dudley Senanayake’s government, which it condemned as a US puppet. Claiming that the CIA was planning to keep that administration in power regardless of the outcome of the general election to be held in 1970, the JVP closed ranks with the SLFP-led United Front led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike and urged the public to give that alliance a supermajority to defeat what it called a CIA conspiracy. The UF won a two-thirds majority. One of the main reasons for the fall of that UNP government was a reduction in the rice subsidy. (The following year, the JVP took up arms against the UF government!)

Five and a half decades on, the JVP is in power with a two-thirds majority in Parliament. It is now eating out of Uncle Sam’s hand! Dudley Senanayake is long dead, but the JVP has another Dudley to contend with, and rice has become an election issue again.

Several farmers’ associations which threw their weight behind the JVP/NPP, helping make last year’s regime change possible, are now on the warpath. They are of the view that the government, in spite of its rhetoric, will continue to be at the mercy of the rice millers’ cartel led by Dudley Sirisena, who, they say, is running a kind of parallel government together with other powerful millers capable of making political leaders bend to their will.

Unlike in 1970, when the JVP went all out to defeat Dudley of Mirigama to help install a government led by the SLFP, today, it has had to tame Dudley of Polonnaruwa for its own sake; it has its work cut out, for the rice Mafia has prevailed over successive governments and humbled even those who take pride in having defeated the LTTE.

Monday 24th March, 2025

Anything is possible in Sri Lanka. In the popular sci-fi movie, Transformers, we have alien robots disguising themselves as cars, etc. That is Hollywood fantasy, but in this land like no other, there has been a real-world instance where tractors became cars, as it were!

Sri Lanka, blessed with fecund land, is described as a country where seeds thrown anywhere sprout and mature in record time. Sadly, it has also become a fertile ground for corruption, which has eaten into its vitals. Politicians are usually blamed for this sorry state of affairs. They no doubt deserve all the flak they are receiving, but others, especially the critics of the political authority, public officials, and business leaders, are no better.

A mega racket involving vehicle imports has come to light. The COPA (Committee on Public Accounts) and the Auditor General’s Department have blown the lid off a racket, where some unscrupulous elements imported luxury vehicles by declaring them as tractors. They have disclosed several instances where hundreds of vehicles were imported fraudulently, and the Customs documents were falsified to cover up those rackets at the expense of the state coffers. Those revelations were made when the bigwigs of the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) were summoned before the COPA the other day. The falsification of vehicle registration documents by some corrupt officials in the DMT has also caused huge losses to the state. The COPA members and the Auditor General were right in laying into the DMT top brass, who could not provide satisfactory answers to the questions posed to them.

The COPA has promised tough action against corrupt elements in the Customs and the DMT. If corruption in vital state institutions can be eliminated, or at least minimised, the government will be able to increase its revenue significantly without burdening the public with tax and tariff increases.

The COPA and the Auditor General’s Department deserve praise for their revelations, but there is reason to believe that they are only scratching the surface of the problem of corruption in the Customs, the DMT, etc. Urgent action should be taken to ensure that freight containers that pass through the Customs undergo stringent tests, and nothing is left to chance. Worryingly, checks on shipping containers are characterised by a chronic laxity, which leaves room for corruption.

One may recall that in January 2025, as many as 324 red-flagged freight containers were released via the so-called green channel without being scanned. The reason given for green-chanelling them was that such extraordinary measures were essential to clear a backlog of containers caused by delays on the part of the Customs! The government also claimed that it had acted on a recommendation made by a three-member committee. Relying on the opinion of the officials of an institution notorious for corruption on such sensitive matters is like seeking the advice of a female clairvoyant to catch a thief who happens to be her own son, as a popular local saying goes.

Many containers had been released in a similar manner under the previous administration as well, the government said. But it was to discontinue such corrupt practices that the people ousted the last regime and voted the JVP-led NPP into office. We pointed out in a previous editorial comment that in 2013, a freight container that a businessman tried to have green-channelled by producing a letter from the Office of the then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne, was found to have a haul of heroin weighing as many as 131 kilos.

By opening that container and conducting a thorough check, which yielded the narcotics concealed in cans of grease, the Customs proved that they were not without honest, intrepid officers; such personnel should be recognised and rewarded. A large stock of cocaine weighing 218 kilos was detected among sacks of sugar in a freight container delivered to the Economic Centre, Ratmalana in 2017. This is why no cargo containers should be released via the green channel. They can carry anything––undeclared vehicles, lethal items, narcotics or hazardous waste.

Saturday 22nd March, 2025

A protest by a group of unemployed graduates has been going on for days near Parliament. The protesters are urging the JVP-led NPP government to fulfil its promise to employ them in the state sector. The government has apparently adopted the proverbial ostrich posture, hoping that the problem will resolve itself without its intervention. But the protesters say they will not go away until the government carries out its promise to them.

There was a heavy police presence near the unemployed graduates’ protest yesterday with a water cannon vehicle at the ready. One can only hope that there won’t be a confrontation between the protesters and the police.

The government has announced its decision to recruit 30,000 more workers into the public service, and it is only natural that the unemployed graduates have taken to the streets, demanding jobs. They are obviously eyeing some of the vacancies which, the government says, have arisen in the state sector.

The state service is already overstaffed as successive governments have used it as a source of employment for their supporters over the years. There is a pressing need to downsize the unproductive, ever-burgeoning public service, which is a drain on the state coffers. We already have one state employee for every 15 citizens.

The government has taken a census of some crop-raiding animals, such as monkeys and peafowl, claiming that it needs reliable data to tackle the problem of depredation in a scientific manner. Curiously, it has not cared to carry out a comprehensive survey on state institutions to find out the excess workers in them and assess the efficiency of those outfits so as to streamline the public service. Progress will continue to elude this country unless its state service is rationalised urgently. Successive governments have baulked at doing so for fear of a political backlash. The UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004) tried to reform the state sector, but it was dislodged and its successor restored the status quo ante.

One’s sympathies are with the protesting unemployed undergraduates; they are some of the victims of the current education and political systems. Most products of Sri Lankan universities lack employability mostly due to deficiencies in the education system, which needs reform.

Students themselves are not without blame for this sorry state of affairs; most of them do not care to gain the skills demanded by the job market. They expect the state to employ them after their graduation. Governments over the decades have given university graduates jobs in the state sector for political reasons. But this practice cannot go on indefinitely, given severe resource constraints and increasing pressure from the international lending agencies to curtail state expenditure. The day may not be far off when the state service has to be downsized whether politicians like it or not.

The government will have to stop dilly-dallying and make a firm policy decision on state sector recruitments. Those who are to graduate from the state universities need to be told the bitter truth, in advance, that they will not be able to secure jobs in the state sector as of right. Unless the government reduces the public sector salary bill drastically to increase its revenue significantly, the economy will not be able to emerge from the present crisis. However, as for the graduates on the warpath near Parliament, the government is left with no alternative but to find ways and means of carrying out its election promise or face the consequences.

What Sri Lankan governments should do is to develop the national economy, bring in educational reforms, take steps to produce employable graduates and create employment opportunities for the country’s youth. Instead, they choose to expand the state sector at the expense of the economy. There’s the rub.