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Editorial

Talking, waiting and walking, but no solution in sight

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In a piece of clever wordplay, the editor of The Island on Friday wrote that the president is talking, the prime minister is waiting and the opposition leader is walking. Sarcasm apart, all this is happening while the people of the country have no clue where we are headed. No solutions to the problems they are confronting and the immense burdens they are carrying have been offered. There’s no light whatever at the end of a dark tunnel with everything in a state of flux. The oft repeated “things will get worse before they get better” is cold comfort. There is no common ground between the president, his brother-prime minister and the multitude on Galle Face green vociferously demanding that the whole kit and caboodle of them depart after returning the loot they have rapaciously robbed from the people.

The one concession extracted like a tooth is that two Rajapaksa siblings and the dynastic successor-in- waiting have been dropped from the cabinet, whether to lick their wounds, at least for the time being, in the legislature or to fade off into the sunset. The continuity of parliament however is also in doubt. The president cannot dissolve the House before two and a half years elapse since the last election in August 2020 unless parliament, by a simple majority, decides to dissolve itself. Given that many MPs well know that they will not be re-elected, it will be doubtful that they will opt for an early dissolution unless external events push them to such a decision. In any case, the last thing the country needs right now is an election and that is widely accepted. There are contending claims on the numbers that the two sides command on the pending no confidence motion against the government; but the actual picture will only be known when a vote is taken. If the motion is carried with a simple majority, then the prime minister and his cabinet must resign as everybody well knows. Then what? While various names of a possible prime minister who can command a majority of parliament has been speculatively bruited around, there has been no serious proposition up until now.

There were no surprises at Friday’s meeting between the president and a group of ruling party and so-called “independent” MPs, once part of the government and the ruling party, to thrash out a via media to tackle the present impasse. Though the SLFP threatened not to attend unless two of their MPs, enticed with state ministries were removed from office, there seems to have been a change of heart and the blues participated despite their conditions not being met. But there was no conclusive decision and no agreements except to meet again. Obviously there was no forward movement and whether there can be such a movement even when they meet again remains to be seen. The president is clear that he will not resign and impeachment is such a long shot why anybody is bothering to talk about it defies comprehension. The prime minister says he will not leave office unless he’s sent off and is confident his aiya will not sack him the way Cheerio Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe and illegally appointed MR to take his place. Sirisena was not held to account for that blatant violation of the constitution and he continues to engage in such political power play his leadership of the SLFP enables him.

Despite the forlorn hope of the government that the Galle Face Aragalaya will lose steam as time passes and fatigue sets in, this has not happened although the protesters have now been on the green for over 20 days. Their numbers are being constantly replenished from all parts of the country and the rhetoric and placards demanding the ouster of the rulers becoming sharper. There has been no political presence on the green save for that of the Front Line Socialist Party, a breakaway from the JVP, now controlling the Inter University Students Federation with a countrywide presence. Logistical support for the agitation is evident with food deliveries and provision of sanitary services. According to protesters such assistance is forthcoming from a wide spectrum of supporters both at home and abroad fired up by the passion and objectives of the agitation, its totally national and secular makeup and absence of division, racial, religious, gender or any other; also the significant middle class presence among its ranks.

The JVP/NPP, despite the size of its demonstration and the attention it commanded, chose not to march to Galle Face with the clear knowledge that a political presence on the green was unwelcome. Sajith Premadasa’s SJB with the compulsion to drum up a bigger show than the rathu sahodarayas will be marching into Colombo on Sunday (May 1) and will also not be Galle Face bound. There’s a clear disconnect between traditional politics and the Galle Face agitation. A concession to achieving political stability without which no economic stability will be possible is essential for whoever calls the shots to offer whatever possible relief to the long suffering people.



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Editorial

Rice, rhetoric and red herrings

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Wednesday 8th January, 2025

It is still being claimed in some quarters that the current rice shortage has come about owing to the use of rice/paddy for manufacturing beer. Among the peddlers of this view are some powerful rice millers including Dudley Sirisena, who cannot be expected to tell the public the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth for obvious reasons. SJB National Organiser Tissa Attanayake has also subscribed to the aforesaid claim.

Some brewers may be using paddy/rice for producing beer on the sly, but it is not possible that their unlawful practice can affect the entire national rice supply. After all, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, some of his ministers, the Department of Agriculture, independent agricultural experts, and market watchers have confirmed that the country produced a paddy surplus last year, and no huge increase in the local beer production has been reported during the past few months. Therefore, it does not stand to reason that the rice shortage is mainly due to the beer manufacturers’ unlawful practice at issue. Most of all, if it is true that beer manufacturing has caused the depletion of rice stocks, how come the rice supply suddenly increases when the Millers’ Mafia is given free rein to increase the prices of rice? Is it that they are capable of turning beer made from paddy into rice to be sold at exorbitant prices?

The claim that brewers are responsible for the current rice scarcity serves the interests of both the Millers’ cartel hoarding rice and the government, which is not equal to the task of tracing the hoarded rice despite its rhetoric The SJB has demanded to know why the rice shortage persists in spite of rice imports. Attanayake has asked rhetorically whether the imported rice also finds its way into breweries. The SJB is barking up the wrong tree.

The Millers’ Mafia is still capable of manipulating the rice market and keeping prices high; some of them are among the rice importers, according to media reports. Another reason for this situation is that instead of leveraging imports to bring the prices of rice down to affordable levels, the government increased the price of imported rice by imposing a 65-rupee tax per kilo. It thus safeguarded the interests of the powerful millers, who craftily offered to sell rice at the maximum retail prices, immediately after the last presidential election, thereby making the small and medium-scale millers panic and dispose of all their stocks post-haste. Today, only the Millers’ Mafia has enough paddy stocks to carry out market manipulations.

In 2020, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government committed a mega sugar scam by slashing the special commodity levy on imported sugar at the behest of a major sugar importer who funded the SLPP’s election campaigns. Has there been a rice scam under the current dispensation? Whether anyone connected to the ruling coalition has benefited from the largesse of the Millers’ cartel, which has stood to gain from the 65-rupee import levy, remains to be seen. This is something the Opposition should make a serious effort to find out instead of being distracted by red herrings thrown in by big-time millers and their political friends.

If what we have witnessed all these years is anything to go by, more rice will have to be imported in the next few weeks, and the large-scale millers will release some of their stocks to the market thereafter, causing the prices of rice to drop in time for the beginning of the next harvesting period so that they can buy paddy at lower prices and subsequently increase the prices of rice through hoarding.

If the government is genuinely interested in looking after the interests of the rice growers and consumers, it will make more storage facilities and funds available for the Paddy Marketing Board urgently to build a buffer stock while ensuring that small and medium-scale millers have funds to purchase paddy when harvesting commences. That is the way to liberate the paddy market from the clutches of the Millers’ cartel. Mere rhetoric and table thumping will not do; the government will have to grasp the nettle.

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Editorial

For God’s sake …

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Tuesday 7th January, 2025

The JVP has a history of disrupting universities, schools, and workplaces. Thankfully, since its ascent to power, the seats of higher learning and public institutions have remained calm. But, now, it stands accused of having disrupted one of the holiest shrines in Sri Lanka—Sri Saman Devale, Ratnapura. All workers of the shrine have launched a strike in protest against the appointment of an Acting Basnayake Nilame (Chief Custodian). The appointment is politically motivated, and the person concerned is not eligible to hold that post, the protesting workers have said, claiming that never has there been a previous instance of such blatant political interference with the administration of the shrine. Commissioner General of Buddhist Affairs R. M. P. Ratnayake has said there is nothing wrong with the appointment of the Acting Basnayake Nilame, but the issue is far from resolved.

Political appointments desecrate religious places. Sadly, elections to the Basnayake Nilame posts at many shrines are political battles in all but name. Everything that politicians touch turns into a mess. They meddle with religious places on the pretext of ridding them of malpractices and settling internal disputes. If there are allegations against the custodians of holy shrines, let the proper process be followed in probing them. Politicians must keep away from the affairs of religious places.

Having trounced its political opponents in the last general election, the JVP-led NPP is apparently trying to take the battle for dominance to the celestial level. It has chosen to vie with the deities for superiority, no less. Minister of Health and Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has drawn heavy flak for a controversial statement he made at a recent ceremony to mark the opening of a children’s bone marrow transplant unit built at Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama, with generous financial support from the Ruhunu Kataragama Maha Devale. After reportedly praising the chief custodian and the workers of the shrine and the devotees who made the completion of the project possible, Minister Jayatissa in his wisdom said, among other things, that not even God Kataratagama or the 330 million deities who are believed to be guarding this country would have been able to match the funds the Sri Lankan governments had allocated for the Health Ministry. The incumbent NPP administration would make an even bigger financial allocation for the health sector from Budget 2025, he said.

Minister Jayatissa has triggered an avalanche of criticism, and the government propagandists have sought to control damage by launching a vilification campaign against the Kataragama Devale Basnayake Nilame D. Gunasekera. They have been making allegations of various malpractices against him. If there is credible evidence to prove those allegations, legal action must be instituted against him, but his leadership for a successful campaign to save the lives of cancer-stricken children must be lauded. There are many other religious places as well as secular organisations providing generous financial support to the state-run health institutions. They deserve praise for their concern for the sick and generosity. It behoves the self-important politicians to refrain from making snide remarks that hurt and dishearten such donors.

Interestingly, Minister Jayatissa has contradicted one of the government’s claims, albeit unwittingly; the NPP has said that previous governments contributed nothing towards public wellbeing for 76 years after Independence. It has gone to the extent of calling the post-Independence period the ‘76-year curse’. But the Cabinet Spokesman has declared that successive governments have even outdone the deities in providing funds for free healthcare! Equally, Dr. Jayatissa is a past student of the C. W. W. Kannangara Central College, Matugama. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake attended the Thambuttegama Central College, which was also born out of the vision and mission of Kannangara, the ‘Father of Free Education’ in Sri Lanka. An article published in this newspaper today reveals how other political leaders like A. Ratnayake made a commendable contribution towards making free education a reality. So, how can the NPP, which cannot even carry out a simple task like making rice and coconuts freely available at affordable prices, say the country did not gain anything for 76 long years?

True, Sri Lanka has not been able to achieve its development goals mainly due to corruption and blunders of previous governments. The challenge before the NPP is to put the country right without fighting political battles, interfering with religious institutions and tilting at newspaper offices.

It is hoped that the absurd behaviour of some key government leaders does not exemplify what the deities are said to do to those whom they wish to destroy.

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Editorial

Drivers from hell

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Monday 6th January, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s ambitious, catch-all project, ‘Clean Sri Lanka’, is in the same perilous situation as pedestrians in this country—it runs the risk of being knocked down by private buses and trishaws, in a manner of speaking. As part of the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ initiative, the police have been in overdrive during the past few days to nab errant private bus and trishaw drivers and strip their contraptions of unauthorised accessories, deafening horns, blinding lights and overly loud exhausts. They are also deploying plainclothesmen in buses to watch out for traffic law violations committed by drivers. They have so far instituted legal action against a large number of drivers. More power to their elbow!

Associations of private bus and trishaw operators are letting out howls of protests against the ongoing programme to make roads safe. Claiming that drivers find it extremely difficult to operate under the current circumstances, those outfits have issued warning to the government; they say they will be compelled to adopt countermeasures unless the police abandon the road safety programme. If private bus and tuk-tuk fraternities abide by the law, they will not be affected by the ongoing police operations. They are protesting because they commit offences such as driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, reckless driving, using mobile phones while driving, lane jumping, ignoring signal lights, disregarding pedestrians’ right of way, etc.

Having backed the JVP-led NPP to the hilt in the presidential and parliamentary elections, last year, the warring private bus and trishaw operators seem to think they enjoy legal immunity. Their spokespersons have audaciously asked the police not to devalue the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ programme by conducting the ongoing operations aimed at making roads safe for everyone!

The NPP government has already capitulated to a bunch of big-time rice millers who have become a law unto themselves, and are apparently running a parallel government. They bankroll election campaigns and have government leaders eating out of their hands. This has led to a situation where a handful of wealthy millers are exploiting consumers and paddy farmers with impunity.

The NPP leaders used to bellow rhetoric, vowing to tame the millers and ensure that the interests of the farming community and the public would prevail, but they float like bees and sting like butterflies when they confront the millers’ cartel. Whether they will give in to pressure from the protesting bus and trishaw operators and ask the police to give the lawbreakers free rein remains to be seen.

President of the Lanka Private Bus Owners’ Association Gemunu Wijeratne, who is protesting against the current traffic police operations, has gone on record as saying that about 50% of bus workers are addicted to narcotics. That is the reason why the police must keep a watchful eye on private bus drivers to ensure the safety of all road users. Instead of flaying the police and the government, he ought to extend the fullest cooperation of his association to them. Similarly, the government should look into the private bus drivers’ grievances. They are without proper rest areas. Most of them are overworked and therefore fatigued. Stress may be one of the reasons for their addiction to alcohol and narcotics, and this aspect of the problem needs to be addressed. But nothing can be cited in extenuation of the violation of traffic laws and endangering the lives of road users. The police must be given a free hand to deal with the drivers from hell and prevent road accidents which destroy about seven lives a day.

The NPP leaders may be able to hold their political enemies at bay, but it looks as if they needed divine help to save themselves from their ‘friends’ in the garb of millers, cabbies and private bus drivers.

In fact, with friends like the protesting private bus and trishaw operators, the government needs no enemies.

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