Stop game of chicken

Monday 27th December, 2021

Railway Station Masters’ trade union action has caused a huge loss to the state coffers. Trains continue to run, and tens of thousands of people are enjoying free travel because there is no one to issue tickets! Is the Transport Ministry rudderless? Or, are the government leaders sozzled to the gills and do not care a damn about what is going on? Most ministers and their loved ones are holidaying overseas while the country is burning, we are told. They seem to be in a fatalistic mood, expecting problems to go away.

The Railway Department is one of the loss-incurring state ventures notorious for inefficiency, corruption and excess employment. The Station Masters’ trade union action will considerably aggravate its losses, which will be conveniently passed on to the public in the form of indirect tax increases, and tariff and fare hikes. Why no one in the government has cared to settle the Railway Department dispute and save public funds is the question.

Someone in authority will have to step in to negotiate with the warring trade unionists and arrive at a negotiated settlement without further delay. Millions of rupees going down the gurgler at a time the country is facing the worst-ever economic crisis, and the government is virtually broke, could be saved if the process of settling the railway dispute is expedited.

It defies comprehension why the government does not care to intervene to solve trade union problems as and when they crop up instead of allowing them to drag on and cause staggering losses to the Treasury or untold hardships to the public.

Ordinary people who cannot afford treatment at private hospitals went through hell recently due to a doctors’ strike. Finally, doctors suspended their trade union action as the Health Ministry agreed to consider their demands. Why couldn’t the government do so earlier and prevent the sick from undergoing immense suffering? Now, other health workers are on the warpath, and the government will have to have talks with them instead of resorting to the game of chicken, again.

EC in the dark

The government has apparently kept the Election Commission (EC) in the dark about its plan to postpone the Local Government (LG) polls due in March 2022. The Island reported, on Saturday, quoting EC Chairman Nimal Punchihewa that the government’s decision at issue had not been intimated to the EC, but State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Roshan Ranasinghe has announced a plan to put off the LG polls by one year.

The reason given for the government’s decision to postpone the LG polls is the prevailing health crisis. Curiously, how come the government knows for sure that the public health situation will not improve by March?

Public resentment is palpable and the SLPP obviously does not want to face an election soon. The postponement of an election, in our book, is the political version of sovereign default in economics. Governments cannot win elections by postponing them; they can only put off defeats.

Elections serve as safety valves in a polity where pressure build-ups are concerned. Most of the unfortunate incidents we witnessed in the late 1980s could have been averted if the general election, scheduled to be held in 1982, had not been replaced with a heavily rigged referendum. The electorate became as volatile as the gas composition in Litro/Laugfs cylinders, and the Indo-Lanka Accord triggered a series of explosions, as it were, setting the country ablaze. In 1975, the United Front government postponed a general election, and suffered its worst-ever defeat two years later. The yahapalana government put off the Provincial Council polls in the most despicable manner in 2017, but the following year, the local government polls acted as a safety valve, and the UNP-SLFP joint administration never recovered.

The government had better not try to postpone the LG polls for political reasons.