Editorial

Down the pallang with no end in sight

Published

4 years ago

2021/04/4

It was a tragedy for this country that Venerable Madulwawe Sobitha Thera, who founded and led the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), died prematurely. Had he lived, the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe government he helped install in 2015 may not have come to its ignoble end five years later. He was the lynch-pin of the force that was able to marshal a common opposition to take on, and stunningly topple, the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime which through its infamous 18^th Amendment to the Constitution abolished the two-term limit on the presidency. Rajapaksa fatally sought a third term for himself, but the end of his presidency and subsequently his government, did not drive him into the political wilderness as it would have most mortals. He lived to fight another day, making those who ousted him eat more than humble pie by first installing his bother, Gotabaya, as the country’s sixth president, and then reducing the once proud UNP to zero in Parliament.

That is contemporary history that our readers are all too familiar with. We all well know too many of our past presidents falsely pledged to abolish the executive presidency created by President J.R. Jayewardene, who too hankered for a third term after decreeing a two term limit, but thought better as two insurrections in the north and south, wracked our island home. Sri Lanka survived those insurgencies with the JVP now in the political mainstream and the LTTE not quite dead, with a diaspora seeking to keep its ambitions alive active in many western countries where votes are bartered for influence. Some of its cult followers are still among us here in Sri Lanka. Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who pledged at Ven. Sobitha’s bier to abolish the executive presidency, though reduced today to a mere Member of Parliament, continues to maintain a low profile presence in national politics. His UNP bete noire, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who helped crown him as president and then sought to strip him of power, clings to the leadership of his party which up to now has been unable to even fill the solitary National List seat in Parliament it secured at the last election.

If Ven. Sobitha had lived, it would have been difficult for the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government to welsh on its promise of abolishing the executive presidency. The moral force of his authority would also surely have prevented the many omissions and commissions of the yahapalana government which was anything but that. But all that was not to be and the country today is at the brink of an abyss with the rupee devalued to 200 per U.S. dollar for the first time in its history, and its national debt estimated to run at over 98% of its GDP. Even though the country’s per capita income has increased steadily over the last two decades, revenue collection has been well below government expenditure, and has not been adequate even to cover recurrent expenditure of the state. Added to this dismal fiscal picture are the everyday travails of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet in the face of an ever-rising cost of living with no relief in sight. Covid has aggravated our predicament and where we go from here is anybody’s guess.

It is in this context that the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) that Ven. Sobitha founded and led is seeking to soberly present to the people the very real dangers confronting the country. Led by respected elder statesman Karu Jayasuriya, the organization is seeking to push the rulers into a correction course through its various activities. It seeks to project an apolitical stance and denies subversive interests. We have published in this newspaper, as we do today, much of what NMSJ and its leader is saying but whether or not such utterances resonate in places where it matters is hard to say. The 20^th Amendment that abolished the 19^th has thrown the baby with the bathwater. None can claim that the ousted leaders and members of yahapalana or their successors were paragons of virtue. The people know too well that succeeding political establishments this country has seen in the 73 years post-Independence has each been worse than its predecessor. The government that has presented some new math on the result of the recent vote at the UNHRC in Geneva continues to muddle along endangering both national security and the national economy.

Not a day passes without one blunder being followed by another. We had the bond scam under the previous dispensation. This one did better with the sugar scam followed by the coconut oil scam. There was no loss but only “foregone revenue” was the feeble defence on offer. This from the keeper of the public purse charged with the responsibility of balancing budgets where revenue monotonously falls short of expenditure. The last lot says that the sugar scam cost the country more than the bond scam; whether the reference was to the first or the second fiddle at the Central Bank or both together, the people don’t know. Environmental degradation continues unabated and the problem has assumed frightening proportions. A minister from the ruling family outrageously declares that two reservoirs will be built in the Sinharaja reserve to provide water for their pocket borough. He promises to plant 150 acres elsewhere to compensate saying that rubber will be planted to give people an income. We have not not had any word that this madcap project has been abandoned if it was ever seriously considered.

The predicament of the people will surely get worse before it gets better – if at all. We have to keep on voting in scoundrels despite their sorry performances and sordid track records for want of alternatives.

NMSJ criticism is offered non-abrasively. Let the issues raised be viewed in a similar spirit and properly addressed.

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Editorial

Rides into the jaws of death

Published

22 hours ago

2025/05/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wednesday 14th May, 2025

It never rains but it pours. Less than 48 hours after Sunday’s tragic accident, where an SLTB bus careened off a winding road and plunged down a precipice near Kotmale, killing 22 passengers and injuring 35 others, a private bus veered off the road, injuring 30 passengers, in Kandy, on Monday night. Thankfully, there were no fatalities. The mishap has been attributed to a brake failure. The Grim Reaper has been in overdrive on Sri Lankan roads.

The police are reported to have appointed a committee headed by SDIG Ajith Rohana to probe Sunday’s fatal accident. It is hoped that the committee members, who are senior police officers, will conduct a thorough investigation, and action will be taken, based on their findings and recommendations, to prevent road accidents.

No sooner had Sunday’s accident had occurred than some SLTB officials claimed that the ill-fated bus had experienced a sudden brake failure while negotiating a bend. But an inspection of the vehicle, or what remains of it, has reportedly revealed that it experienced no mechanical defect. Some media reports have said the driver of the bus had been working for more than 12 hours continuously and was fatigued. The SLTB is overstaffed, and it defies comprehension why its workers have to exert themselves to the point of burnout.

Safety regulations require that heavy vehicle drivers work for only about six hours a day lest they should be fatigued and drowsy. Road safety experts inform us that most road accidents occur due to human error—drivers become either reckless, distracted or fatigued; due to the circadian rhythm, most drivers become drowsy between midnight and 7:00 a.m. and between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. This is believed to be the main reason for most crashes on expressways as well as other roads. It has to be addressed as a national priority to prevent crashes and make roads safe.

As for drowsiness or sleep-related road accidents, which have become a significant concern, there is a need for more rest areas along the expressways. Besides, technology provides solutions. There are electronic devices that detect signs of fatigue or distraction of drivers and alert them to prevent accidents. Modern vehicles come fitted with them, and some drowsiness detection systems can be retrofitted to older vehicles to help save lives. Making such technologies available at affordable prices should be part of any road safety programme. Most of all, measures should be adopted to ensure that heavy vehicle drivers are well-rested and sober before getting behind the wheel, and all vehicles must be inspected to ensure their roadworthiness.

Meanwhile, the police should reveal what action they have taken against the NPP activists who parked buses on the Southern Expressway illegally on May Day. A few days prior to that incident, the police had fined the driver of a bus carrying a group of schoolchildren for the same offence, we are told. If the culprits are allowed to get off scot-free because they are NPP supporters, a very bad precedent will be set, and the government’s approval rating will plummet further. Sadly, the culture of impunity, which the present-day leaders promised to do away with, persists.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, taking part in a television interview a few days before the recent local government polls said those who were responsible for the expressway incident would have to face legal action. He also said they may have been compelled to stop on the expressway as the rest areas had been full of vehicles. If so, they should have taken the next exit, had lunch and re-entered the expressway. Nothing can be cited in extenuation of the serious offence they committed.

The success of any programme to ensure road safety hinges on the strict enforcement of traffic laws. Impunity undermines public trust and compromises road safety efforts.

Editorial

Dances with Thieves

Published

2 days ago

2025/05/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

Tuesday 13th May, 2025

The title of today’s comment was inspired by the name of an award-winning 1990 film, Dances with Wolves, which is the sobriquet given to the protagonist, Lt. John Dunbar, by a Native American tribe because of his close interactions with a wolf he befriends. We were reminded of that epithet on seeing the JVP-led NPP waltzing with those it condemned as thieves before last week’s local government (LG) polls. The NPP government deserves the moniker, Dances with Thieves.

The morality of ruling politicians in Sri Lanka flies out of the window at the first sign of trouble which is likely to threaten their hold on power. Likewise, the Opposition’s insatiable thirst for power takes precedence over scruples. Hence there are so many strange bedfellows in Sri Lankan politics.

Whoever would have thought that the JVP/NPP would ever stoop so low as to woo the very politicians it lumped together with their political enemies and branded as thieves? The NPP adopted and propagated a binary view of politicians, created a dichotomy between the camp it represents and others, declared in no uncertain terms that all its political rivals, including independent candidates, were thieves—horu—and asked for a mandate to rid the political institutions of those ‘rogues’ once and for all; that pledge enabled the NPP to win the presidential and parliamentary elections, last year, but it did not prove equally effective in the recently concluded LG elections.

The NPP and the SJB are vying for the control of the hung LG bodies, especially the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC). The government and its political opponents turned the recent LG elections into a contest between horu and boru; the NPP leaders including Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya urged the people not to vote for the independent candidates as well, who, they said, were also thieves or horu. The Opposition used boru or lies uttered by the NPP leaders to discredit the government and gain some political traction.

Both the NPP and the SJB are all out to engineer crossovers to muster majorities in the hung councils while accusing each other of trying to induce defections financially. There is no such thing as a free crossover in this country, where most politicians are Mammon worshippers, and money has a mellowing effect on their principles. So, neither the NPP nor the Opposition will be able to convince the public that the members who switch their allegiance to it, if any, have acted out of conviction.

What is legally acceptable may not be morally right. So, in the non-majority CMC, the SJB may be able to secure a majority, if it is lucky, but it is without any moral right to control the council, for the people of Colombo did not give it a mandate to do so, and, above all, its mayoral candidate failed to be elected in spite of being a respected professional. Similarly, the NPP’s all-out efforts to bag the much-coveted CMC outright did not reach fruition; it failed to obtain enough votes to secure an absolute majority. The same, more or less, holds true for other hung councils.

The NPP ought to realise that its vote share is in decline nationwide, as evident from the outcome of the LG polls, which its leaders including President Anura Kumara Dissanayake himself turned into a kind of national election, and the majority of voters have backed the NPP’s rivals, who contested severally. Likewise, the Opposition cannot deny the fact that it lacks popular support to govern the non-majority LG councils.

The NPP and the Opposition must realise that the electorate has rejected both of them in the hung councils, the difference between them being only a matter of degree. They must also bear in mind that unless they read the message contained in the people’s verdict accurately and respect it, they will incur public ire. Let them be warned that public disillusionment and resentment, which is palpable, will provide a turbo boost to the rising tide of anti-politics, which almost plunged the country into anarchy in 2022. Their leaders must stop vilifying one another and testing the people’s patience, and negotiate how to navigate the hung councils out of the current imbroglio and make them fully functional for the public good.

Editorial

Address root causes of road fatalities

Published

3 days ago

2025/05/12

Thilina Walpola

Monday 12th May, 2025

A tragic road accident near Kotmale claimed 21 lives yesterday and left 35 others seriously injured. Disaster struck when a state-owned bus plying from Kataragama to Kurunegala via Nuwara Eliya, veered off a winding road and plunged down a precipice. Yesterday’s tragedy has jolted politicians and officials alike into action, but it is bound to be forgotten soon. Sri Lanka lacks a proper national strategy to prevent road fatalities. Hardly a day passes without a fatal road traffic accident being reported. About 2,243 people were killed and 4,552 others seriously injured in road accidents in 2024. Of those mishaps 2,141 were fatal.

The cause of yesterday’s accident had not been established at the time of going to press. The ill-fated bus had gone out of control due to a technical fault, according to some reports, but a survivor has been quoted as saying the vehicle was speeding. One can only hope that the police, the SLTB and the Transport Ministry will conduct a thorough probe into Sunday’s accident and take action to prevent such tragedies.

A World Bank report, Delivering Road Safety in Sri Lanka; Leadership Priorities and Initiatives to 2030, reveals that ‘the high road crash fatality and injury rates on Sri Lanka’s roads undermine the economic growth and progress made over the past decade on reducing poverty and boosting prosperity’. The report says the annual crash deaths per capita in Sri Lanka are twice the average rate in high-income countries and five times that of the best performing countries in the world! Sri Lanka reportedly has the worst road fatality rate among its immediate neighbours in the South Asia region.

It has been revealed that many drivers operate while being impaired by alcohol or drugs. In 2021, then the government disclosed that about 80% of the private bus drivers in Colombo and its suburbs were under the influence of drugs while on duty. The situation must be more or less the same where other heavy vehicle drivers are concerned. Trucks ply like bats out of hell on busy roads, terrorising other road users, making one doubt the sobriety of their drivers. The initial detection of impaired driving with visual inspection is relatively easier where drunk drivers are concerned, but the task of nabbing drugged divers is far more difficult. Hence the need for methods such as random roadside drug tests.

Complaints abound that passenger buses are not properly maintained or even regularly cleaned. Their owners try to teach politicians how to govern the country while they are doing precious little to operate their own buses in a civilised manner. Successive governments have not cared to arrest the deterioration of the SLTB, much less develop it to provide a better service. About 2,000 SLTB buses are out of service, mainly for want of spares, according to the Transport Ministry, and the roadworthiness of the ones in operation is reportedly in question. No surprise that the SLTB fleet is plagued by technical defects.

Meanwhile, a road safety expert, a few years ago, proposed that bamboo be planted on the slopes adjacent to curvy roads to stabilise soil, maintain the integrity of land in those areas and complement engineered structures such as guardrails to prevent vehicles from plunging down precipices. Nothing much has since been heard about this proposal, which deserves the attention of the authorities responsible for ensuring road safety.

Road safety experts have identified the following factors, inter alia, as the common causes of crashes on expressways and other roads in Sri Lanka: speeding, distractions, recklessness, fatigue, driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, inclement weather conditions, inadequate road conditions, tailgating, improper lane changes, inexperience of drivers, overtaking dangerously, poor visibility, unroadworthy vehicles, poor signage or lack of road markings and impatience or time pressure. One of the aforesaid factors or a combination of two or more of them could lead to fatal accidents on any road. So, any strategy to prevent road mishaps consists in addressing those causes.

One can only hope that yesterday’s tragic accident will galvanise the authorities concerned to make a truly national effort to save lives being lost on roads.