Editorial

Gota’s address to the nation

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/20

The point has been made that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his address to the nation last Thursday had not only argued the case for his defence over the dire predicament now confronting the country, but had also left a great deal unsaid. We begin this comment complimenting the president on the tone and tenor of his delivery. As is usual with him, he made his pre-recorded address without oratorical flourishes or rhetoric, obviously reading from a teleprompter, and also not taking cheap jibes at his opponents as most politicians are wont to do. He clearly said that he is very well aware of the present suffering of the people but these problems were not of his making. As President Rajapaksa has eyes to see and ears to hear, he cannot be unaware of what people are going through today. Right now we at a juncture widely accepted as being among the worst periods in our post-independence history. These feelings are freely articulated at numerous protest rallies and queues for almost impossible-to-get essentials and are beamed to millions of homes countrywide in the evening television news bulletins.

What hit many viewers of this address was that not a word was said about the president’s fertilizer misadventure that created chaos in the agriculture sector. It disrupted production and created massive shortages of previously available essentials including home grown rice, vegetables and fruit. The president conveniently chose to ignore all this, a matter which is a major contributor to the present impasse rooted in the forex crisis the country is now fighting. There was also his remark that those who contributed to creating the problems are criticizing the government before the people today. This, perhaps was the only overt criticism of the opposition in his speech aimed at and those who served the previous Yahapalana administration. It could not be targeting the JVP which too is in the vanguard of the protests. Certainly Yahapalana’s acts of omission and commission during its tenure, notably the bond scam, did contribute to the present mess but the present lot has done worse

The president must not forget that his brother, Mahinda, who unsuccessfully sought a third term in 2015 after engineering defections for a two thirds majority to abolish the constitutionally mandated term limit on the presidency, brazenly colluded with Yahapalana leader Mathiripala Sirisena to unlawfully seize the prime ministry from Ranil Wickremesinghe. Sirisena and his SLFP were part of the winning coalition at the last parliamentary election although they are now distancing themselves from the ruling party which enabled most of them to win their seats.

Who blasted the country’s precious resources in vanity projects like the not yet commissioned Lotus Tower, the far from viable Mattala International Airport, and other projects at Hambantota like the stadium, the international convention centre, what was claimed to be the only dry zone botanical garden and much more? The Hambantota port is now under long lease to the Chinese to overcome debt servicing and repayment problems. Then there was the disaster of getting rid of the Emirates Airline profitably managing the national carrier under a joint venture over a matter of personal pique and the airline has returned to losses. Some of these vanity projects were shamelessly bestowed the name of a living Rajapaksa.

While there is no gainsaying that the highway construction initiated by the previous Rajapaksa regime vastly improved connectivity in the country, there are questions on whether many of them were rated high enough on the national priority list to rate turboprop implementation at great cost. Did we for instance need a six lane highway to Hambantota with the elaborate Siribopura intersection linking it to the local road network? We cannot overlook pervasive suspicion that road building entails massive kickbacks into political pockets.

Then there was Gota’s assertion that he entered politics at the invitation the people. That was what Winston Churchill once called a “terminological inexactitude.” He was undoubtedly invited by the Rajapaksa family to run for president to succeed his brother who wasn’t entitled to run for a third term thanks to the 19th Amendment. He gave up his U.S. citizenship with that objective. Although 6.9 million voted for him, grateful for the major role he played in the war victory, and trusting his promises of “vistas of prosperity and splendor”, they in no way invited him to seek the presidency. That was his own and his family’s choice. The majority were happy that he won comfortably but many of them are now publicly ruing how they voted and saying so without mincing their words. That has hitherto not happened on the present scale when people publicly express their feelings towards their rulers in the harshest terms. But that, of course, can be marked a plus for the regime not interfering with free speech.

Nobody would have expected a mea culpa address to the nation from an incumbent president and we did not get it. People remember that President J.R. Jayewardene in 1983 did not utter a word of apology to the Tamils who were set upon by savage Sinhala mobs while law enforcers idly stood by earning his regime a massive blackmark at home and abroad. President GR in his address last week called for the cooperation of all to overcome the massive problems besetting the country. The generally non-abrasive nature of his address has set the stage favorably for achieving a positive outcome from that effort. But for that much else must be done as Mr. Karu Jayasuriya said at Anuradhapura last week. But his proposal that 20A be repealed as a sign of good faith is too much to expect. So also the demand of Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa’s that a presidential election be held and the government handed to a ‘can do’ SJB. Dr. Nihal Jayawickrema has forensically demonstrated that this is unattainable while columnist Rajan Philips has on this page branded it as “vacuous bluster.”

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Editorial

Let sanity prevail

Published

2 hours ago

2026/01/4

Thilina Walpola

Sri Lanka’s education sector is rarely in the news for the right reasons. It is perennially in turmoil and characterised by countless problems and clashes. Thankfully, the Education Ministry has walked back its controversial decision to extend the school day by half an hour. It is reported to have cited transport problems caused by recent disasters as the reason for the reversal of its decision. However, it is determined to go ahead with its education reforms amidst vehement protests from teachers, principals and other stakeholders.

The general consensus is that the education system in this country needs to be reformed, but the NPP government made a huge mistake by rushing to prepare education reforms without consulting other stakeholders and trying to shove them down the throats of principals, teachers and students. It should have adopted a conciliatory approach.

A stock excuse the government gives for its failure to fulfil its election promises is that one year is not sufficient for it to deliver on its campaign pledges, but it has formulated education reforms in double-quick time! There is no way the government can implement education reforms successfully without the cooperation of teachers and principals. Hence it should make a serious effort to secure their support.

All governments with supermajorities become impervious to reason and seek to bulldoze their way through. The NPP administration has failed to be different. It may have thought that it would be able to wear down the warring teachers’ unions by sticking to its guns. But the education sector trade unionists have proved that they are made of sterner stuff. They have warned that they will bring the government to its knees if it tries to force them into submission.

Schools have faced numerous disruptions during the past several years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, etc. A strike in the education sector is the last thing the country needs at this juncture. A showdown between the education sector trade unions and the government must therefore be averted by any means.

When the government announced its decision to introduce education reforms, we argued that it had to engage all stakeholders, and heed the oxymoronic Latin adage—festina lente (‘make haste slowly’). Many experts in the field of education urged it to tread cautiously lest its reform project should run into resistance and fail. But the government chose to set about the vital task in a slapdash manner. The ongoing controversy over an adult content website mentioned in an English language module for Grade Six points to an inordinate haste on the part of those who formulated education reforms. This issue has left both the proponents and opponents of education reforms expounding conspiracy theories.

The proposed education reforms have been politicised to such an extent that they are now a political issue, which the Opposition is using as a bludgeon to beat the government. This situation could have been avoided if the processes of formulating education reforms had been made inclusive.

There is no shame in heeding dissenting views and making course corrections. Flexibility is not a sign of weakness. It is a hallmark of responsible governance. The government ought to put its education reform package on hold, and get all stakeholders around the table for an extensive discussion on it. A timeframe for education reforms must not be determined politically.

Independent educationists have provided valuable insights into the ongoing debate on education reforms. They are adept at designing learning systems, developing teaching approaches and influencing educational practices and policies to improve learning experiences and outcomes. The views of these experts, principals and teachers must be taken on board when education reforms are prepared.

Editorial

A question of power

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/3

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 3rd Junuary, 2026

The Electricity Consumers’ Association (ECA) has said the government is planning to pass the cost of the voluntary retirement scheme for the employees of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), which is to be restructured, on to the public in the form of a power tariff hike. A proposal to this effect has been submitted to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the ECA has said.

The proposed tariff hike is said to be 11.57% for the first quarter of the current year. Speculation is rife that the PUCSL will grant the CEB’s request, and the public will be made to bear the cost of the voluntary retirement of about 2,500 CEB employees thanks to the cost reflective pricing mechanism. The problem is not going to end there; there are bound to be some more power tariff hikes.

One of the reasons given for Sri Lanka’s rupee crisis was the country’s legacy of below-cost pricing for utilities, such as electricity and fuel, by way of a ‘blanket’ type relief to consumers irrespective of their income level. These subsidies took their toll on the state-owned business enterprises (SOBEs) including the CEB and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), according to the Central Bank, which in its Annual Economic Review 2024 has noted that the banking sector financed the liquidity shortages of these SOBEs at the expense of productive investments. Hence the determination of the prices of electricity and fuel strictly in keeping with the cost reflective pricing mechanism. In fact, the IMF gave the previous government Hobson’s choice, by making cost-reflective pricing one of its bailout conditions.

The cost reflective pricing has not gone down well with the public, as is obvious, but it makes economic sense and goes a long way towards preventing the country facing another rupee crisis. Heavy subsidies are a drain on the state coffers and become unviable in the long run. In fact, it is a case of swings and roundabouts for the public where such subsidies are concerned; the state uses taxes to recover the costs of subsidies and legacy debts it assumes. However, it is nothing but unfair to make consumers bear the cost of massive overheads, waste and corruption that SOBEs, like the CEB and the CPC, are notorious for. The costs of the utilities must therefore be properly calculated in a transparent manner to prevent the exploitation of the public.

If the government goes ahead with its plan to pass the cost of restructuring the CEB on to the public through power tariff hikes, as the ECA has alleged, then the price of electricity will soar, taking a heavy toll on the economy.

In March 2023, this newspaper quoted energy expert Dr. Tilak Siyamabalpitiya, who went on to become CEB Chairman, as having said at an event organised by the CEB engineers, that Sri Lanka had the second highest electricity prices in Asia. Thus, power tariff increases are very likely to stand in the way of the government’s efforts to attract foreign investors and retain the ones who are already here. One of the factors that determine the competitiveness of investment destinations is the cost of electricity. The government must not lose sight of this fact.

The government has chosen to remain silent on the ECA’s allegation. But the truth will soon come out.

Editorial

It’s PC polls, stupid

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/2

Thilina Walpola

Friday 2nd Junuary, 2026

The SJB yesterday called upon the NPP government to hold the much-delayed Provincial Council (PC) polls soon. Its call is bound to go unheeded, for the JVP/NPP is not ready for an election. Having suffered a string of defeats in the cooperative society elections during the past several months, the government is trying every trick in the book to postpone the PC elections further. The outcome of last year’s local government polls is not something the JVP/NPP can be really proud of; its efforts to sweep the polls did not reach fruition although it managed to bag a majority of local councils.

A midterm electoral setback could be the undoing of a government however powerful it may be. The fate that befell the Mahinda Rajapaksa government following the Uva PC polls in September 2014 is a case in point. The UPFA won the Uva PC, but the number of its seats dropped from 25 to 19. The number of UNP’s seats increased from 7 to 13. The JVP, which had only one seat in the previous council, secured 02 in 2014. President Rajapaksa, in his wisdom, advanced a presidential election, and lost the presidency to Maithripala Sirisena in January 2015.

So, it is highly unlikely that the NPP government will hold the PC polls anytime soon. The Opposition is not strong enough to pressure the government politically to take a huge electoral gamble by holding an election.

It is doubtful whether the Opposition is really keen to face an election at this juncture despite its rhetoric. The SJB and other Opposition parties have closed ranks and defeated budgets in a considerable number of NPP-controlled local councils and won cooperative society elections. But their fragile unity is not going to survive an election that they will have to contest separately. A split in the anti-government vote will stand the JVP/NPP in good stead. However, the situation is likely to change if the UNP and the SJB come together to contest future elections.

What enabled the UNP to improve its electoral performance in the Uva Province in 2014 and gain a strategic opening to topple the Rajapaksa government a few months later was a rapprochement between two factions led by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa.

The SJB leaders who are demanding that the PC polls be held soon ought to tender an apology to the public for the role they played in postponing the PC elections indefinitely in 2017 while they were in the UNP-led Yahapalana government. The UNP and the SLFP, as Yahapalana allies, were wary of facing an election in 2017 and therefore amended the PC Elections Act to delay the PC polls. None of the political parties represented in Parliament at the time, including the UNP, the SLFP/UPFA, the ITAK, the SLMC, and the JVP, opposed the obnoxious amendment to the PC Elections Act. The current SLPP leaders were dissident members of the UPFA. The original amendment Bill was to provide for a quota of 30% for female candidates on the nomination papers submitted for the PC elections, but it was changed beyond recognition at the committee stage to facilitate the postponement of the PC polls. Article 78 (3) of the Constitution says, “Any amendment proposed to a Bill in Parliament shall not deviate from the merits and principles of such Bill.” But the aforesaid political parties took the bad amendment for granted; the PC polls were made to disappear, as it were.

The incumbent government has said the PC polls will be held under the Mixed Proportional (MP) system. The delimitation of electoral boundaries, which is a prerequisite for holding the PC polls under the MP system, will take about one year, according to the Election Commission. The only way to hold the PC election soon is to legislate for it to be conducted under the existing Proportional Representation system. If the SJB is serious about having the PC polls held soon, it should campaign for amending the PC Elections Act, in Parliament. Let it be urged to fish or cut bait.