Fish or cut bait

Tuesday 28th January, 2025

It looks as if the JVP-NPP government considered the occupation by three former Presidents of state-owned houses as the biggest problem facing the country. Hardly a day passes without President Anura Kumara Dissanayake mentioning the values of those houses and their imputed rentals and asking the former Presidents to vacate them. He renewed his call, on Sunday, while addressing an NPP rally in Anuradhapura.

Gone are the days when politicians retired penniless in this country. Today, politics has become an El Dorado for the practitioners thereof; power and influence they wield are pathways to wealth and personal gain rather than a means of public service. So, it defies comprehension why retired politicians should be looked after by the state. However, the withdrawal of any entitlements of the former Presidents must be in accordance with the law.

The housing matter in question could have been handled better. The government could have used its two-thirds majority in Parliament to change the Presidents Entitlements Act and do away with the former Presidents’ perks and privileges once and for all, or it could have offered alternative accommodation to the former Presidents and made a polite request in writing that they vacate the houses they are occupying. After all, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said he will leave the Wijerama residence if a written request is made to that effect. However, the government has, true to form, opted for a political circus, which, it may have believed, would help distract the public from unresolved burning issues and its unfulfilled election pledges.

One cannot but agree with President Dissanayake that the state-owned houses occupied by former Presidents are too large for them. The government has said the official residence of Rajapaksa has about 35,000 sq. ft, and the floor area of former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s house is about 15,000 sq. ft. Similarly, one would like to know the cumulative square footage of the buildings the JVP destroyed in the late 1980s. Former President Maithripala Sirisena has revealed that the JVP burnt down 245 out of 545 agrarian service centres countrywide together with storage facilities belonging to the Paddy Marketing Board, during its second uprising. What is the total value of those buildings and other such state assets destroyed by the JVP?

In the run-up to last year’s elections, the JVP/NPP pledged to abolish the perks and privileges of the former Presidents and the pensions of the MPs. So, one can argue that President Dissanayake is duty bound to carry out that promise. But why isn’t he so keen to fulfil other election pledges? More importantly, the question is why the JVP, which is against the provision of state-owned houses to former Presidents, did not make an issue of the State looking after the family of JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera, who plunged the country into bloodbaths twice.

Wijeweera was responsible for the destruction of tens of thousands of lives and public properties worth billions of rupees; he and his party almost succeeded in making the economy collapse so much so that the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa offered to come blindfolded for discussions with the JVP leaders to find a negotiated solution. Eventually, Wijeweera met his match in Premadasa and died a painful death while in custody. The State did not provide for the families of the political leaders killed by the JVP for defending democracy. Following Vijaya Kaumaratunga’s assassination, his wife, Chandrika and their two children were not looked after by the State. They had to flee the country. One can argue that the JVP must pay the rent for the house where Chandrika is currently residing and let her stay there; that is the least it can do by way of atonement for its sins.

Minister Sunil Handunnetti has gone on record as saying that President Dissanayake is now wielding the same executive powers as President J. R. Jayewardene, who bragged that the only task he could not accomplish was to make a man a woman and vice versa. President Dissanayake also controls Parliament, where his party has a two-thirds majority. So, he can change the Presidents Entitlements Act, which he has taken exception to, instead of complaining in public. Let the government be asked to fish or cut bait.