Wednesday 21st January, 2026

A rice tycoon has become a clout chaser, posting ostentatiously on social media about his extravagance ad nauseam. He has been TikToking his newly acquired Rolls-Royce to boost his ego and online visibility. What he does with his own money should not be anyone else’s concern, one can argue. This argument is not without some merit. But the large-scale rice millers are making a vulgar display of their wealth in this manner while paddy cultivators, stuck neck-deep in debt, are mortgaging their household goods, jewellery and agricultural equipment to make ends meet, and the public is complaining of unconscionably high prices of rice. This shows that there is something terribly wrong with the mechanisms in place to safeguard the interests of rice growers and consumers; it has also given the lie to the big-time millers’ oft-repeated claim that they are just keeping their heads above water, and they are justified in increasing the prices of rice from time to time.

Powerful rice millers with huge slush funds are known to have politicians and political parties in their pocket. Successive governments have benefited from their largesse and protected their interests at the expense of the public. Those who elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former military officer, as President, expected him to get tough with the unscrupulous millers notorious for their exploitative practices, but he lacked the courage to take them on. Instead of looking after the interests of the public, he ordered the Consumer Affairs Authority to stop searching for hoarded paddy in some wealthy millers’ sprawling warehouses, thus giving the rice tycoon fraternity carte blanche to manipulate paddy and rice markets. The predecessors of the failed Gotabaya regime did likewise. A wag says that when money talks even dyed-in-the-wool Marxists listen.

In 2024, the disillusioned electors overwhelmingly voted for the NPP led by the JVP, which claims to espouse Marxism, expecting the traders’ cartels, including that of millers to be tamed as a national priority. But the ‘Marxists’ signal left and turn right just like the tuk-tuks on Sri Lankan roads, and powerful millers continue to do as they please.

A few months into office, during a meeting with a group of powerful millers on rice shortages and high prices, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake created a bit of drama, banging as he did a clenched fist on his desk. Everybody thought he had put his foot down at last and was about to read the rice millers the riot act, asking them to comply with the legally set price ceiling for rice. But his theatrics ended in anticlimax; he increased the prices of rice by Rs. 10 a kilo much to the glee of the millers, who laughed all the way to the bank for the umpteenth time.

The politically connected millers are free to create shortages of rice and jack up prices, making the government import rice and saturate the market close to the commencement of paddy harvesting so that they can buy paddy at very low prices; thereafter they hoard paddy and increase the prices of rice. Huge stocks of imported rice, which does not suit the Sri Lankan palate, rot in government warehouses and are eventually sold as animal feed. Consumers and farmers are without anyone to turn to. The large-scale millers determine the prices of paddy and rice by keeping markets uncompetitive.

The self-proclaimed messiahs in the Opposition shed copious tears for paddy cultivators and rice consumers, vowing to safeguard their interests in case of being voted into power, but they also have a history of pandering to the whims and fancies of the wealthy millers, who generously bankroll election campaigns. The laws in place to regulate campaign finance lack strong teeth and politicians and their financiers drive a coach and horses through them.

One of the campaign promises of the incumbent government was to make Japanese hatchbacks freely available at Rs. 2 million each for the benefit of the public, but vehicle prices have gone into the stratosphere and even motorcycles and trishaws are beyond their reach. The ordinary people who are struggling to dull the pangs of hunger due to the high prices of rice have had to settle for watching the viral videos of the miller’s Rolls-Royce.

Tuesday 20th January, 2026

The National Audit Office (NAO) has remained headless since last month. It was under an Acting Auditor General for about nine months from April 2025. The longstanding vacancy at the highest level of the supreme audit institution in the country and deplorable attempts being made to appoint a crony of the ruling party as Auditor General (AG) will severely erode the confidence of investors and donors. The post-Ditwah rebuilding programme requires donor assistance, which is not likely to be forthcoming if the NAO remains without a head. This situation would not have come about if President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had nominated a senior official in the NAO for the post of AG. Instead, he nominated less qualified outsiders and the Constitutional Council (CC) rightly refused to approve those nominations.

The Opposition has argued that the government is desperate to appoint one of its loyalists as AG due to the sheer number of questionable deals on its watch, some of the high-profile ones being the green-channelling of 323 red-flagged freight containers in January 2025, the coal scandal, the Ondansetron or pharmaceutical procurement scam, questionable rice imports and controversial pickup truck deal. They have the potential to bring down what has been touted as the central pillar of the NPP government—the much-advertised anti-corruption campaign

At the time of going to press, pressure was mounting on the government to reveal a foreign laboratory report on substandard coal stocks procured for power generation. The Energy Ministry has refused to accept the results of tests conducted by a state-owned laboratory, which found the coal stocks substandard. Coal samples were then sent to a laboratory in India for testing, and the Frontline Socialist Party has said the test results have been submitted to the government, but it is keeping them under wraps as part of a grand cover-up.

SJB MP Dr. Harsha de Silva, who has evinced a genuine interest in resolving the NAO issue, has gone on record as saying that President Dissanayake sought his assistance to put the matter to rest, but the Speaker prevented him from communicating with the CC members. It was a case of the President proposing and the Speaker disposing, as we said in a recent headline.

The current CC has lived up to the expectations of the campaigners for good governance mainly thanks to its intrepid civil society members, who have become an effective counter-balance. The government is allegedly biding time until the reconstitution of the CC and the exit of the civil society members who have frustrated its efforts to appoint one of its cronies as AG. Speculation is rife that the JVP/NPP will do everything in its power to make the CC a mere rubber stamp for the President.

The AG must be free from executive control to ensure unbiased scrutiny of government accounts. He or she is required to perform multiple tasks impartially to strengthen good governance, some of them being ensuring financial accuracy, preventing misuse, evaluating performance, reporting to Parliament, reinforcing accountability, and supporting governance reforms. If the President succeeds in parachuting an outsider with NPP links into the post of AG, over the eligible candidates in the NAO, that person will naturally be beholden to the government, compromising the integrity of the vital institution. Such an appointment, tainted with politics, will run counter to the letter and spirit of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which was introduced to reinforce independent institutions, restore mechanisms for transparent appointments, and uphold good governance.

The Police Department has become a malleable tool for the ruling party. The Executive’s pressure tactics have compromised the autonomous decision-making powers of the Attorney General to a considerable extent. Only the judiciary is still held in high esteem as most of its decisions have so far embodied certain core hallmarks that uphold fairness, legitimacy and public trust. One can only hope that it will continue to safeguard its independence vis-à-vis the hostility of meddlesome politicians. It may be recalled that the previous government sought to summon some Supreme Court (SC) judges before the parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Privileges over an interim order that cleared obstacles to conducting elections. The order was given by a three-member SC bench, comprising Justice Preethi Padman Surasena, (who became Chief Justice), Justice Janak de Silva and Justice Priyantha Fernando, allowing the consideration of a fundamental rights petition filed by the SJB. Fortunately, sanity prevailed and the SLPP-UNP administration walked back its decision.

The laudable objectives that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was expected to help achieve remain unattainable. The NPP Manifesto, A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, pledges to “Improve public finance efficiency, transparency, governance and accountability, and eliminate unnecessary public expenditure” (p. 57). It also promises “merit-based appointments and promotions” (p. 110). How can a government ensure public finance efficiency, etc., without an AG independent of the Executive and free from any conflict of interest or quid pro quo? It is imperative that the most suitable official in the NAO be appointed as Auditor General urgently.

Monday 19th January, 2026

The police did not breathalyse NPP MP Asoka Ranwala following a serious road accident he caused last month and went out of their way to ensure that he would not undergo a blood alcohol test until more than 12 hours had elapsed. But on Friday they swiftly administered a breath test on a driver who happened to ram his vehicle into a car driven by MP Ranwala’s wife on the Kelaniya-Biyagama road, and lost no time in declaring that he was drunk. Such is the selective efficiency of the police. On the same night, the police made a public display of their servility to the NPP government in Tambuttegama, where they removed the flags put up by the SLPP in view of a political event.

Addressing a group of SLPP supporters on Saturday, MP Namal Rajapaksa vowed to stand up to what he described as state terror and defend democracy. If only he had done so while his family was in power!

Last September, the police openly backed a group of JVP activists who stormed an office of the Frontline Socialist Party in Yakkala. They went to the extent of providing security to the place which was forcibly occupied by the JVP cadres. Last Friday, a senior police officer in uniform was seen on television answering a call from someone, returning to the scene and barking orders with renewed vigour. That reminded us of IGP Pujith Jayasundera’s infamous telephone call at a public rally in Ratnapura in 2016; he was captured on camera answering a call from someone he reverentially addressed as sir, and informing the latter that he had instructed the police not to arrest a certain Nilame.

It is only wishful thinking that the rule of law can be restored when the police are made to act like the storm troopers of the ruling party. The deterioration of the Police Department is not of recent origin; it is a result of decades of politicisation under successive governments led by the SLFP, the UNP and their allies. The JVP/NPP also keeps the police under its thumb.

The Rajapaksas and their hangers-on would have the public believe that they are on a crusade to protect democracy. They seem to have a very low opinion of people’s intelligence and memory. Otherwise, they would not have sought to hoodwink the public by playing the victim card and lamenting the decline of the police and other vital state institutions due to politicisation. While in power, they unflinchingly resorted to violence to further their political interests and had the police on a string. They brought the Attorney General’s Department directly under the President and ordered the police not only to harass their political opponents but also to allow their goons to unleash violence to disrupt Opposition protests. When the media questioned the Police Spokesman why club-wielding government thugs were allowed to operate alongside the riot police, he denied the charge, claiming that they were ordinary citizens. When it was pointed out that they had been armed with clubs, he had the chutzpah to claim that they may have been carrying ‘sticks’ to ward off street dogs. In 2014, Hambantota Mayor Eraj Fernando, a staunch Rajapaksa loyalist, armed with a pistol, menacingly pursued a group of UNP-MPs who were visiting the Hambantota Port. The government spokespersons of the day unashamedly insisted that Fernando had been carrying a toy pistol. Besides, that regime used the police and military intelligence as the Oprichniki of Ivan the Terrible. Namal should be happy that the police only pulled down the SLPP’s flags in Thambuttegama on Friday, and there were no incidents of violence.

However, it is undeniable that the police acted in a despicable manner in Thambuttegama on Friday. It was obvious that they did so at the behest of some JVP/NPP politicians who did not want the SLPP to put on a show of strength in the hometown of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and some ministers. The NPP government, which came to power promising a radical departure from the past political culture is emulating its predecessors and making the police do dirty political work for it.

In Sri Lanka, supermajorities are cursed. When power goes to their heads, politicians take leave of their senses and lay bare their true faces. There is hardly anything that they do not do to retain their hold on power. But it is counterproductive to suppress political dissent, and the governments that do so dig their own political graves; when they lose power, they find that the boot is on the other foot, with the police grovelling before the new rulers.

Unless the JVP/NPP fulfils its promise to replace the current rotten political culture with a new one, it may have the police pulling down its own flags in Thambuttegama and elsewhere under another government, perhaps, sooner than expected.