Saturday 12th July, 2025

Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Rathnayake, speaking in Parliament yesterday, asked the Opposition to stop making unsubstantiated allegations, and lodge a formal complaint with the police against him for the alleged release of 323 red-flagged containers without Customs inspection from the Colombo Port in January 2025.

“Imprison me if I have done anything wrong,” he told the Opposition, claiming that he had no authority to decide on matters such as releasing containers. One cannot but agree with him that the Opposition should resort to legal action over the container scandal instead of flogging the issue to gain political mileage.

Worryingly, in this country many serious issues, including political killings, are reduced to mere slogans that political parties use to attract media attention and boost their approval ratings.

The Opposition ought to do as Minister Rathnayake says if it has irrefutable evidence to prove that he has committed a punishable offence. However, it is only wishful thinking that anything will come of a police complaint against a powerful minister. The culture of impunity is far from over.

It was only on Wednesday that Opposition MP D. V. Chanaka told Parliament that Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, former SDIG Ravi Seneviratne, had misused his authority to have two serious charges against him dropped in a case involving an accident he caused while driving under the influence of liquor. The Opposition has also said the police have taken no action against hundreds of NPP supporters who blatantly violated traffic laws by parking buses on the Southern Expressway and having lunch on 01 May 2025. Will the government say what action the police have taken against those transgressors? If the NPP’s rank and file remain above the law, how can the police be expected to act on complaints against Cabinet ministers?

Minister Rathnayake’s challenge at issue to the Opposition coincided with a report that the Additional Magistrate of Colombo had informed the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) that it did not need an arrest warrant to take former Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne into custody in connection with an investigation into a complaint that when he was the Minister of Fisheries he caused a project to be unlawfully handed over to a foreign company, causing a loss of more than 26.3 million to the state.

Senaratne is facing legal action because he is out of power. Some Opposition politicians have been sentenced to jail for financial irregularities that caused losses to the state coffers under their watch as ministers during the previous governments.

The leaders of the SLPP-UNP government had to allow one of its ministers, Keheliya Rambukwella, to be arrested and prosecuted over pharmaceutical scandal because it became too embarrassing for them to defend him, with elections only a few months away, last year; they were left with no alternative but to throw him under the bus.

So, one should not be so naïve as to expect any powerful NPP politician to face legal action for being on the wrong side of the law until the incumbent administration stays in power. Only a future government may consider bringing them to justice.

A country like Sri Lanka gains from alternate power shifts in elections. All the Opposition politicians, save Rambukwella, would have been safe if the SLPP-UNP government had won last year’s elections.

One is happy to see stern action being taken against the rivals of the NPP not only because they must be made to pay for their sins but also because that will prompt those in the Opposition to deal with the current rulers accused of various malpractices, in a similar manner, after the next regime change.

Friday 11th July, 2025

Minister of Public Security Ananda Wijepala declared in Parliament on Wednesday that TMVP leader Sivanesathurai Chanthirakanthan alias Pilleyan had had prior knowledge of the Easter Sunday terror strikes (2019). Pilleyan was in the Batticaloa prison at the time of the terror attacks.

A narrative is apparently being created to support former aide to Pilleyan, Azad Moulana’s claim that Pilleyan and the military intelligence had links to Zahran Hashim and other NTJ terrorists. No one may have been more au fait with the workings of the NTJ terror network than Mohamed Ibrahim, father of two NTJ suicide bombers, Mohamed Ilham and Mohamed Insaf. This fact has been borne out by a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera and Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayaka during the Yahapalana government.

Following the so-called money trail is one of the most effective methods of identifying the masterminds behind a terror attack. It was Ibrahim’s sons who funded the NTJ terror project. Ibrahim was a National List candidate of the JVP in the 2015 general election. The Opposition has sought to use this fact to discredit the JVP. It is absurd to claim that the blame for the 2019 terror attacks should be apportioned to the JVP simply because Ibrahim was on its National List. However, the question is why the incumbent JVP-led NPP administration, which inveighs against its political rivals, including the Rajapaksas and Pilleyan, has not taken any action against Ibrahim.

In a leaked audio clip of a telephone conversation between Ramanayake and SSP Abeysekera, about the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the latter is heard telling the former something in Sinhala to the effect that Ibrahim cannot be so stupid as not to have known what his two sons had been doing. If this audio recording is not fake, the CID should go by Abeysekera’s contention, and interrogate Ibrahim again as part of their efforts to identify the terror masterminds. As we argued in a previous editorial comment, when Ishara Sewwandi, a female accomplice of the gunman who killed underworld leader Ganemulle Sanjeewa in a courtroom at Hulftsdorp, went into hiding, the police arrested and grilled her mother and brother. The question is whether the NPP will allow its former National List candidate to be arrested and interrogated again.

Meanwhile, SLPP MP D. V. Chanaka lashed out at the NPP government in Parliament on Wednesday, for having sunk to a new low in politicising the police. He said Abeysekera, who campaigned for the NPP and even addressed the media at the JVP headquarters, Colombo, in support of the NPP prior to last year’s presidential election, had been pulled out of retirement and appointed the Director of the CID to target the Opposition politicians. Can a retired senior police officer who campaigned for the ruling party, and was brought in as the Director of the CID, be expected to act independently and impartially, without furthering the political interests of his political leaders?

The Opposition has accused Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security retired Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne of abusing his authority to have two serious charges including drunk driving dropped in a case against him for causing a road accident while driving under the influence of liquor in Colombo. So, what guarantee is there that Seneviratne will not do likewise to save his own skin and safeguard and/or promote the interests of his political leaders anent the probe into the Easter Sunday terror attacks? One is reminded of the despicable manner in which the Rajapaksa government opened an escape route for Mervyn Silva, charged with cheque fraud, a criminal offence. That serious charge was dropped and Silva walked free! Those who expected the 2024 regime change to bring about a radical break from the rotten political culture that flourished under previous governments must be really disappointed and disillusioned.

When—or whether—the government and the Opposition will stop clashing over the masterminds behind the Easter Sunday carnage and make a joint effort to ensure justice for the victims is anybody’s guess.

Thursday 10th July, 2025

Parliamentary proceedings in this country are characterised by references to political rejects or riff-raff or dregs. On Tuesday, the attention of the legislature was drawn to a different kind of waste—refuse tea, which has led to serious problems that successive governments have failed to solve, and evolved into a kind of shadow industry, thriving outside regulatory oversight, feeding illegal supply chains and ruining Sri Lanka’s reputation as a quality tea producer.

An MP asked Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure Samantha Vidyarathna what action the government was planning to take to tackle the well-entrenched, lucrative refuse tea racket; he also wanted to know, among other things, whether any action would be taken to regulate the illegal tea waste trade so that the state would gain financially, as there was a market, both here and overseas, for discarded sweepings from factory floors, or whether the racket which adversely affected tea smallholders would be brought to an end.

Admitting that refuse tea continued to enter the market, Minister Vidyarathna said there were laws to deal with that racket, and action had been taken to tackle it. He claimed the government was working towards optimising the production of quality tea and reducing the refuse tea generation to a bare minimum. His response was not much different from those of his predecessors who also made similar pledges in Parliament but did precious little to fulfil them.

Refuse tea, which enters the market, masquerading as pure Ceylon tea, tarnishes Sri Lanka’s reputation internationally and poses health risks to consumers here and overseas. The most effective way to tackle all these problems is to eliminate their root cause—refuse tea, which must be destroyed at the source, under official supervision, like other edibles and drinkables unfit for human consumption.

So, it defies comprehension why there should be any discussion, in Parliament or elsewhere, on exploring ways and means of regulating the illegal refuse tea trade or adopting band-aid remedies. An illegal practice must not be given any legitimacy through regulation; instead, it must be brought to an end. Refuse tea, by definition, is waste and it must be treated as such. It must not be allowed to leave the factories where it is generated. Let that be the bottom line.

The illegal refuse tea trade is reportedly dominated by some underworld gangs that use threats and bribes to further their interests. Underworld leader Makandure Madush, described as Sri Lanka’s Napoleon of Crime, operated from Dubai and facilitated tea waste smuggling operations. He even issued death threats to high-ranking state officials who tried to stop it. He is long dead, but in the netherworld of crime, narcotics, etc., when a gang leader dies, other criminals move in to fill the vacuum. The connivance of some state officials and politicians has made the task of eliminating the refuse tea trade even more difficult. Not even the Special Task Force has been able to neutralise the organised gangs involved in the racket. Not that the elite tactical force lacks the capability to accomplish that task. It has not been given a free hand; the racketeers have political connections and the wherewithal to prevent the law enforcement officers from going all out to put an end to their illegal operations. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently vowed to eliminate what he described as ‘mini governments’ in the country; one of them is apparently controlling the refuse tea trade.

Meanwhile, there is a pressing need to conduct regular tests on tea consumed by ordinary Sri Lankans to ensure that it is fit for human consumption. Much of it looks more like black dust than tea, and its impact on health is anybody’s guess. It is high time random samples of unhygienic tea freely available across the country were obtained and tested scientifically.