Opinion
Sugar scam or tax scam?
Early in the Sirisena administration, there was a ‘treasury Bond scam’ (bandumkara mankollaya) which lawyers, politicians and journalists conjured up into a Central Bank, bond scam (mahabanku badumkara mankollaya). When a fundamental rights case, arising out of the scam, was heard in the Supreme Court, a lawyer for the defence, argued that the matter was a ‘kussiamma job’ in the Central Bank, between the Governor of the Bank and his subordinates, and that the parties in the Central Bank prepared a meal as was ordered by the master. While there was a kernel of truth, in his argument, it was misleading in that officers of the Central Bank were an essential link in the insider dealing, that turned out to be the essential nature of the crime. No assets of the central bank were involved in the transactions and the Bank’s books contain no accounts of any losses arising out of the scam. All the estimated losses were suffered by the state. The dealings were in government bonds. The entire scandal arose in the bond market and revolved around transferring (selling) insider information that enabled a particular dealer in the market to make a killing, at cost to the state, and, incidentally, to other bond dealers. Some senior Central Bank officials, and the Chairman of the Monetary Board (therefore governor of the Central Bank), are among those that have been charged according to law. These allegations arose out of other proceedings after the Supreme Court denied the claims of the complainants that the scandal deserved further inquiry. The moniker ‘mahabanku mankollaya’ helped to perpetuate the myth that Central Bank bonds were involved and that losses were incurred by the Monetary Authority of the country. It diverted attention from the true nature of the crime to a fake nature and thus from those who perpetrated the crime and those who aided and abetted the commitment of the crime to that did not exist.
A commentator, in this newspaper, wrote a few times about the abuse of terms and this newspaper seems to have realized the validity of that man’s claim. Others continue to perpetuate the abuse of terms to propagate fake news. I was annoyed by the cartoon this (15/3) morning in which your cartoonist mentioned a sugar scam. There was none such.
The same fate seems to befall the tax scam (badu mankollaya) arising from the import of sugar and import tax variations for a very brief period of a few months. The tax rate was reduced from Rs. 50 a kilo to Rs.0.25 for a few months and raised again to Rs.50 per kilo, for no substantial reason, other than that of reducing the cost to the consumer (good enough). Large quantities of sugar that were imported at the lower rate of duty, by a few and a very large part of that by one person. Because a few people controlled supplies of sugar they controlled the price of sugar and consumers did not benefit from the lower price that the government expected. It is disingenuous of the Treasury to argue after the event, that they did not know that the few would not reduce prices as the Treasury expected. The same foul game had been played a few years earlier under the Sirisena administration. Treasury economists surely should have known the structure of that market before they took the decision to reduce the rate of duty by a factor of 200 from Rs.50 per kilo to Rs.0.25 per kilo in one fell swoop. The lower import duty was not passed onto the consumer. The Treasury now estimates that the loss to the state was Rs.15.9 billion, not an inconsiderable pot of money. As every loss to someone in the market is always a gain to another, who was that another? The importers, in this instance. Clearly, the scam related to taxes (badu mankollaya) payable to the state. That there was a sugar scandal (seeni mankollaya) is fake news, designed to erase the responsibility of the Treasury for the scam.
Usvatte-aratchi
The first and only tsunami that Sri Lanka experienced was on Boxing Day(26th) of December 2004. My wife and I, as usual, went down to Modara in Moratuwa to purchase our seafood requirements of seafood from our familiar fishmonger, Siltin, from whom we had been buying fish for a long time. Sometimes we used to take a couple of friends of ours. But on this day, it was only both of us that went on this trip.
We made our purchases and were returning home and when we came up to the Dehiwala bridge, many people were looking down at the canal from both sides of the bridge. This was strange, as normally if there was something unusual, it would be on one side.
Anyway, we came home unaware of anything that had happened. A school friend of mine (sadly he is no longer with us) telephoned me and asked whether I was aware of what had happened. When I answered him in the negative, he told me to switch on the TV and watch. Then when I did so and saw what was happening, I was shocked. But still I did not know that we had just managed to escape being swept away by the tsunami.
Later, when I telephoned Siltin and asked him, he said that both of us had a narrow escape. Soon after we had left in our car, the tsunami had invaded the shore with a terrifying wave and taken away everything of the fishmongers, including their stalls, the fish, weighing scales and money. The fishmongers had managed to run to safety.
This had been about five minutes after we had left. So, it was a narrow shave to have escaped the wrath of the demining tsunami( the name many Sri Lankans came to know after it hit our island very badly}
HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE
Sri Lanka has recorded a staggering 375 elephant deaths in the past eleven and a half months due to a multitude of causes, according to the Department of Wildlife Conservation. U. L Thaufeeq, Deputy Director – Elephant Conservation said the deaths include 74 from gunshots, 53 from electrocution, 49 from hakka patas (explosive devices hidden in food), seven from poisoning, 10 from train accidents, three from a road accident, and six by drowning. It makes such diabolical reading!
“The causes of other deaths are due to natural causes or causes that could not be identified. Most of the elephants that died were young,” the official said.
Meanwhile, the human-elephant conflict has also taken a toll on people, with 149 human deaths reported this year.
Accordingly, human-elephant conflict has resulted in 524 deaths of both elephants and humans in 2024.
In 2023, a total of 488 elephants and 184 people have died consequent to the conflict, according to Wildlife Department statistics.
The human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated to unprecedented levels with reasons like habitat destruction, encroachment, and the lack of sustainable coexistence measures contributing to the issue.
This is an indictment of the Wildlife Department for just giving the sad yearly statistics of shocking losses of our National treasures !
Given the fact that Sri Lanka boasts of 29.9% of the country declared as protected forests, Sri Lanka is a haven for nature lovers. Boasting 26 national parks, 10 nature reserves including 3 strict nature reserves, and 61 sanctuaries, the national parks in Sri Lanka offer an incredible variety of wildlife experiences.
Taken in that context, the million dollar question is why on earth the Wildlife Department is not being proactive to capture these magnificent animals and transport them into protected sanctuaries, thus effectively minimising dangers to villagers ?
Being a Buddhist country primarily, to turn a blind eye to these avoidable tragic deaths to mankind and wild elephants, we should be ashamed !
As a practising Buddhist myself, I think our clergy could play a major part in calling upon the Wildlife Department to get their act together sooner rather than later to protect human elephant conflicts !
Sri Lanka being a favourite destination amongst foreign tourists, they are bound to take a dim view of what is happening on the ground!
If the top brass in the responsible department are not doing their job properly, may be there is a case for the new President to intervene before it gets worse!
All animal lovers hope and pray the New Year will usher in a well coordinated plan of action put in place to ensure the well being of wildlife and villagers !
Sunil Dharmabandhu
Wales, UK
This has reference to the article from the Aircraft Owners and Operators Sri Lanka, titled ‘Closer look at regulatory oversight and its impact on Tourism’, published on Tuesday, 24th December 2024.To explain further, in the beginning there was the Air Navigation Act No 15 of 1950 which was followed by the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) of 1955. This was long before the national airline had acquired pressurised aircraft, intercontinental jets, sophisticated navigation equipment, satellite communication and automatic landing systems, and ‘glass’ flight-deck instrumentation.
Today, civil aviation in Sri Lanka is governed by Civil Aviation Act Number 14 of 2010. Yet the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) promulgated back in 1955 remain in force.
These outdated regulations still stipulate rules forbidding the carriage of passengers on the airplane’s wings or undercarriage (landing gear). In short, they are neither practical nor user-friendly. In contrast, the Air Navigation Regulations of other countries have progressed and are easy to read, understand, and implement.
To overcome the problem of outdated regulations, as an interim measure in 1969 the then Minister of Communications and Transport, Mr E.L.B. Hurulle issued a Government Gazette notification declaring that the Standard and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) in Annexes to the ICAO Convention signed by Ceylon in 1944 shall be made law.
Even so, nothing much was done to move with the times until updating of the Civil Aviation Act 14 of 2010, while the Air Navigation Regulations remained unchanged since 1955. However, these regulations were modified from time to time by the promulgation of Implementing Standards (IS) and General Directives (GDs) which were blindly ‘cut and pasted’ by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL), from the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Annexe ‘SARPS’ without much thought given. To date there are literally 99 IS’s starting from 2010.
The currently effective air navigation regulations are not in one document like the rest of the world, but all over the place and difficult for the flying public to follow as they are not regularly updated. This sad situation seems to have been noticed by the current regime.
The National Tourism Policy of the ruling NPP states, “Domestic air operations are currently limited due to high cost and regulatory restrictions. The current regulatory and operational environment will be reviewed to ensure domestic air connectivity to major tourist destinations. The potential of operating a domestic air schedule with multiple operators is proposed. Additionally, domestic airports and water aerodromes in potential key areas will be further developed, for high-end tourism growth.”
“The tourism policy recognises Sri Lanka’s potential to develop Sri Lanka’s aviation-based specialised tourism products, including fun flying, hot air ballooning, paragliding, parachuting and skydiving, and scenic seaplane operations. To facilitate the growth of these niche markets, existing regulations will be reviewed with the aim of attracting capable investors to develop and operate these offerings.”
It remains to be seen whether the NPP government lives up to those promises.
Note:
That OPA report talks of two funds: ‘Connectivity’ and ‘Viability’ for a limited period like three or five years to help jump-start the domestic aviation industry.
The ‘Connectivity Fund’ will cap the seat price for local passengers to a more affordable value to destinations while the ‘Viability Fund’ will assume that all seats are occupied and compensate the operator for any unutilised seat. The intention is to popularise domestic aviation as a safe, quick and convenient mode of transport.
Capt. Gihan A Fernando
RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines.
Now A Fun Flier
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