Friday 7th November, 2025

Partisan politics has spared hardly anything in this country, with politicians striving to gain political mileage out of everything. It is therefore not surprising at all that the so-called ‘national programmes’ end up being mere political campaigns and run out of steam with the passage of time. Operation Yukthiya, launched by the previous government with the ambitious goal of neutralising the underworld, is a case in point.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa government branded its political opponents as ‘traitors’, and made the most of the defeat of the LTTE to further its political interests. President Maithripala Sirisena embarked on an anti-narcotics campaign to prepare the ground for his re-election bid, and condemned his critics as crooks. His plan went awry due to the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019). The NPP government has launched a country-wide drug-bust, and is demonising its opponents as drug dealers.

The NPP made use of an increase in drug detections in Tangalle and adjoining areas to make the SLPP out to be a party of drug dealers. It used the alleged involvement of a former SLPP local government member in the drug trade to bolster its claim. The boot is now on the other foot. An NPP local councillor, her husband and her son have been arrested and remanded on narcotics charges. The Opposition has got hold of something to beat the government with.

The NPP politician’s husband, arrested with heroin, is a school principal. This shows the gravity of the problem. Drug dealers are a very innovative lot. They use multiple facades and fronts to conceal their dirty operations. Following the 2004 assassination of Sarath Ambepitiya, an upright High Court judge, we revealed that Kudu Nauffer, who masterminded the murder, had, through a front, sponsored food and beverages served at a judicial officers’ function. A drug dealer, named Shiyam, and his wife, posed as wealthy garment factory owners, before being arrested with a huge stock of heroin in their Ward Place residence, where they had entertained political and business leaders among others. Kudu Lal, a heroin supplier in Colombo, had himself elected to the Colombo Municipal Council. Subsequently, he fled the country. In 2002, the then IGP T. E. Anandaraja attended a drug dealer’s party in a Colombo hotel. In 2013, a drug dealer obtained a letter from the then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne’s office, requesting the Customs to clear some freight containers on a priority basis; the Customs detected 131 kilos of heroin, concealed in one of them. Such is the socio-political clout of drug barons, who are also known to shower funds on some politicians and political parties.

In democratic societies, regimes change, with the declining elite being replaced by a new, more vigorous one. This is what Vilfredo Pareto called the circulation of elites. In this country, regime changes lead to the circulation of underworld figures as well, with the criminals identified with the outgoing regime being replaced by those working for the incoming one. However, criminals, such as drug dealers, do not circulate when regime changes occur. They retain their political clout through various means and carry out their sordid operations under all governments.

As for the proliferation of narcotics, the wild allegations the NPP and its opponents are trading and their arguments are tainted with false generalisation or drawing conclusions about a whole group based on a small or unrepresentative sample. These claims and counterclaims have riven the electorate along political lines, much to the detriment of the country’s efforts to eliminate the drug menace.

It is imperative that the government and the Opposition stop their mud-slinging campaigns and take cognisance of the severity of the drug problem and how drug dealers have infiltrated political parties, the police and other state institutions. They must join forces to eliminate the hydra-headed drug scourge.

Thursday 6th November, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is scheduled to perform an unenviable task tomorrow—presenting Budget 2026. The JVP-led NPP raised people’s expectations beyond measure to win elections, and it is now under tremendous pressure to honour its pledges.

State sector trade unions are demanding pay hikes and tax relief, as usual. The Government Medical Officers’ Association is prominent among them. It has called for a salary increase and a PAYE tax reduction for its members.

The ordinary people are also crying out for relief. The only way to ease their economic burden is for the government to reduce taxes and tariffs substantially. But the government will have to increase state expenditure significantly if it is to increase public sector salaries, reduce taxes and tariffs and grant other forms of relief. At the same time, it has to curtail expenditure substantially to boost state revenue, reduce the budget deficit and, above all, fulfil the IMF bailout conditions. This is a typical Catch-22 situation.

The government has been able to achieve a 30% revenue increase, according to media reports, which also reveal a 10% increase in state expenditure. Overall, this may look like a positive development, but capital expenditure has been curtailed. An increase in capital expenditure is a prerequisite for economic development, but it will cause the budget deficit to widen. There’s the rub.

There has been a 4.8% economic growth during the first eight months of the current year, according to some media reports, but experts inform us that the government will have to increase the growth rate at least up to 6% for the economy to remain robust and for the foreign debt repayment to commence in earnest in 2028. This is an uphill task.

Vehicle imports have given a big fillip to the ongoing efforts to increase state revenue, but it is not advisable for the government to rely solely thereon for that purpose. There will be a decrease in vehicle imports sooner or later, and they have led to a huge increase in the outflow of foreign exchange. Taxes and tariffs have already been pushed to the maximum, and further increases therein and/or new taxes are fraught with the danger of causing public anger to spill over onto the streets. The NPP came to power, promising to slash taxes and tariffs.

The government will have to introduce economic reforms expeditiously to achieve its revenue targets, spur growth and keep the economy on an even keel. But going by stiff resistance the Ceylon Electricity Board workers have put up against the proposed power sector restructuring, the government has apparently come up against a brick wall.

Loss-incurring state ventures are a drain on the state coffers, and the people have to pay through the nose to maintain them. President Dissanayake, speaking at a Ratnapura District Coordination Committee meeting, recently, declared that local government institutions should not engage in business activities, such as building supermarkets, as they were best left to the private sector. He revealed a plan to seek private sector participation in running the state-owned rest houses across the country. That declaration, which runs counter to statism, a hallmark of socialism, signalled an ideological volte face on the part of the JVP, which calls itself a Marxist party. Yet the President’s contention at issue makes economic sense, at least where state ventures in this country are concerned. He said such infrastructural projects had become huge white elephants, causing staggering losses to the state. Curiously, the government has retained the loss-incurring national carrier as a state venture, and keeps on injecting billions of rupees in tax money into it annually.

It remains to be seen how the government will navigate the treacherous economic waters between Scylla and Charybdis.

Wednesday 5th November, 2025

It is said that the purpose of education is not just to accumulate facts or acquire knowledge but to develop problem-solving skills and critical thinking abilities, but in Sri Lanka the education sector itself has become a problem, as evident from the ongoing battle between the government and teachers’ trade unions over the proposed education reforms. Teachers, principals, politicians and policymakers themselves seem to lack problem solving skills and critical thinking abilities.

A collective of trade unions representing the state-sector teachers and principals has taken exception to a government move to extend the school day by half an hour to 2.00 p.m. But Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, who is also the Minister of Education, is determined to carry out the government decision at issue, and the teachers and principals have threatened to launch a strike. All signs are that the game of chicken between the government and the warring trade unions will disrupt school education.

It is undeniable that the education sector needs reforms, but they must be formulated and implemented with the consent of all stakeholders. Problems arise when politicians prepare reforms, according to their whims and fancies and try to ram them down the throats of teachers and principals. Reforms, educational or otherwise, must not be presented as faits accomplis, if they are to be acceptable to all stakeholders, whose consent as well as cooperation is a prerequisite for their implementation. Any reform process sans transparency and consultation runs into resistance and tends to fall through. But governments with steamroller majorities are no respecters of dissent and seek to railroad all others into endorsing their reform projects. Politicians become impervious to reason when power goes to their heads.

It is puzzling why the government has proposed to extend school hours as part of its education reform package. Teachers’ trade unions are right in demanding to know from the Education Ministry whether its move at issue has any scientific basis. The government says extra time will help teachers cover syllabus content, free from stress. But teachers’ workload, student engagement and whether the additional time will be used productively have to be factored in.

Government propagandists have put forth an argument that teacher unions are protesting against the proposed extension of the school day because it will adversely impact the lucrative private tuition industry. This line of thinking is flawed in that the many large-scale private tutors openly campaigned for the NPP, and therefore the incumbent government will not do anything that will jeopardise their interests. On the other hand, shadow education or private supplementary tutoring is not peculiar to Sri Lanka. A global phenomenon with an enormous market believed to be worth US 227 billion, it is a major feature in Asia. It has taken root in countries with large Asian immigrant populations, like Australia, as well.

State employees tend to resist change. Teachers are no exception. Politicians are in the habit of introducing change for political reasons. Successive governments have meddled with the education sector and introduced reform haphazardly instead of formulating a national policy with the help of all stakeholders.

The proposed education reforms have become a problem because the government and the teachers’ trade unions remain intransigent. The solution, in our book, lies equidistant between the positions taken up by the government and the trade unions, and the challenge for both parties is to make a concerted effort and figure it out. This task requires all stakeholders to subjugate their personal interests to the pressing need to enhance the quality of education and ensure the wellbeing of the student community. Meanwhile, there should be a countrywide public engagement programme to ascertain the views of the parents of students and other such stakeholders, whose voice is not heard in the ongoing debate on education reforms.