Monday 14th March, 2022

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa makes surprise visits to various state institutions to keep public employees, especially shirkers among them, on their toes. He has drawn criticism from his political opponents, who claim that he is trying to distract public attention from his government’s pathetic failure, and score brownie points with the people, who are struggling to make ends meet. The President, they say, should address serious issues the country is beset with instead of inspecting government offices. But the state service has become a law unto itself, owing to lack of supervision, and earned notoriety for its callous disregard for people’s grievances. It is also characterised by chronic lethargy, inordinate delays and corruption. Presidential action at issue, therefore, will go down well where the people who despise the public service are concerned. It may be recalled that the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa endeared himself to the public by getting tough with errant public officials.

While President Rajapaksa is busy trying to make state officials pull their socks up and serve the public, the Opposition is raking his brother, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, over the coals for shirking his ministerial responsibilities! Opposition politicians have been tearing into Minister Rajapaksa during the past few days because he has not spoken a single word in Parliament for three months or so. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake told the House, the other day, that Rajapaksa had remained silent since 10 December 2021! The Opposition has called upon the Speaker to direct the Finance Minister to make a statement in the House on the prevailing economic crisis. But the Speaker has said he has no power to summon ministers or direct them to make statements in the House. The President, as the head of the government and the Cabinet, however, could ask ministers to make statements and field questions in Parliament. He even sacks ministers, doesn’t he? Therefore, he ought to tell Finance Minister Rajapaksa to apprise Parliament of the present economic situation, and measures, if any, being adopted to prevent the economy from collapsing. Shouldn’t he put his own house in order before taking on errant public officials?

Besides, let the President be urged to make surprise visits to Parliament to ensure that the members of his parliamentary group attend House sittings and behave. When he is present in Parliament, the government members act responsibly.

The Opposition is reportedly planning to move a no-confidence motion against Finance Minister Rajapaksa for shirking his parliamentary duties, among other things. The government has enough numbers to scuttle such a move, but the Opposition will have an opportunity to inflict severe damage on the SLPP. Former Minister Wimal Weerawansa has claimed that Finance Minister Rajapaksa is furthering the interests of India and the US by aggravating Sri Lanka’s economic crisis in such a way that Sri Lankans are now left with no alternative but to agree to bailout packages on terms favourable to those two countries. This allegation has gone unchallenged, and if the Finance Minister remains silent thereon any longer, it will provide sufficient grounds for a no-faith motion against him.

Not all Opposition MPs make up a cohort that is literate and numerate, but they cannot be unaware that they do not have enough numbers to ensure the passage of a no-confidence motion against the Finance Minister Rajapaksa. But their intention may be to gain political traction at the expense of the government, which is experiencing an internal dispute. Three rebel ministers have already been stripped of their portfolios, and two of them—Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila—are ridiculing the Finance Minister. They will not vote with the government to defeat a no-faith motion against him if they have any sense of shame. The SLFP has also been critical of the Finance Minister, who is allegedly shortchanging the SLPP constituents. The Opposition may be trying to use a no-confidence motion as a wedge to cause a split in the SLPP. Whether it will succeed in their endeavour remains to be seen.

The signs have been ominous for the past several weeks and finally the axe has fallen. Plagued by both mismanagement and bad governance by the ruling Rajapaksas, aggravated by an ineffective opposition, the bad news is now very much here and the people have to face the harsh reality. Last week’s sharp devaluation of the rupee against the dollar, long resisted by the Central Bank and its Governor, has been forced upon the Sri Lanka economy and a population that moved from gas queues to milk powder queues and then to long lines to refuel their vehicles interspersed by blackouts and power outages countrywide will, hopefully, be spared such torment in the near term. But at a price and a very heavy price at that, that most people would not be able to afford. But for how long? We can only hope that a benevolent deity will smile down on this tormented land.

The economic indicators are grim. The foreign exchange liabilities of the Central Bank exceeded its reserve assets by Rs. 662 billion (USD 3.29 bn.) in January this year, up from Rs. 386 billion (USD 1.9 bn.) a month earlier. The situation today must necessarily be worse with the country struggling to repay debt and being compelled to utilize reserves to pay for vital imports. We have been printing money as though there is no tomorrow and this has been going on for a long time. Cash savings of people have been wiped out in value terms in a country that had long been advocating savings as a means of strengthening the economy. Those who held what funds they had in fixed income instruments like fixed deposits have taken a heavy blow while those who invested in real assets like land and property or even a vehicle have been relatively unscathed. However, it is still too early to say whether capital appreciation of real estate in the current scenario will continue as in the past.

Government leaders have been urging patience on a population that is running out of that, or more correctly, already run out of it. No less than the president assured that the power problem will be over by March 5. But that was not to be. Ministers Lokuge and Gammanpila kept making contradictory statement with the ground situation proving Gammanpila right. The Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC), the Indian player in Sri Lanka’s oil import and distribution market, raised prices four times since Dec. 21 last year. The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) which controls the larger market share did not follow suit though both players have been stridently claiming that they are selling below procurement cost. The obvious result of LIOC fuel, both petrol and diesel, being much more expensive than CPC’s, consumers tanked-up at CPC filling stations unless they were forced to do otherwise. The net result is that already high CPC losses swelled further.

The grim reality is that CPC must raise its prices sooner than later. The government, obviously, is all too aware of the ramifications of a fuel price increase which is all encompassing. Public transport fares must go up; so also the price of produce that must be moved to markets. The implications are far and wide but the evil day will soon be with us. The CPC, initially, would hike prices to be on par with LIOC, and thereafter both companies needing to match their sale prices with the cost of procuring supplies will demand further price increases. These no doubt will be granted. There is a Tamil proverb that the man who is already wet does not feel the rain. People hit with price rises for all essentials, leave apart the few luxuries that makes life tolerant, may (hopefully from the rulers’ viewpoint) like the man who got wet in the rain not feel the effect of this one too badly. We need not labour the fact that the impact of the devaluation will be all pervading.

There have been indication that the hard line resistance towards going to the IMF for assistance is weakening. A structural adjustment facility (SAF) from the Fund in 1978 greatly assisted President J.R. Jayewardene’s big bold stroke of freeing the economy shackled for decades by state controls. There were conditions for that including a sharp depreciation of the rupee from then prevailing exchange rates. Older readers may remember that the National Savings Bank (NSB) at that time paid as much as 22% for one-year fixed deposits. There was a surge in imports and demand pent-up over several years was satisfied. So much so that Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali, then minister of trade and shipping, once declared that people may tolerate high prices up to a point, but never again scarcities. Fifty years later they have been forced to tolerate both.

The IMF has warned that the Central Bank may lose control of money and the economy could implode unless money printing was stopped. There are signs that this advice is now being taken, although late. It said in a statement that Sri Lanka’s public debt, including Central Bank liabilities, has risen to 119 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The bank is yet carrying debts to the tune of USD 1.2 billion to the IMF from previous currency crises. The president will chair an All Party Conference, something it was hitherto reluctant to do, within the next few days. As SJB front-liner Harsha de Silva, a knowledgeable economist recently said, “We’re all in this together.” Now is not the time for the cheap politics that has long plagued this country. The right thing must be done. But do we have the leaders to do it? That is the question.

Saturday 12th March, 2022

SJB MP Chaminda Wijesiri has proved that the current Parliament is not without members who feel for the public and have the courage to speak the truth however unpalatable it may be. He struck a discordant note in the House, on Thursday, while several others were inveighing against the newspapers that had reported an incident where some MPs allegedly found fault with the parliament canteen staff for the non-availability of dairy products.

Leading the charge against the press, SLPP MP Jayantha Ketagoda accused the media of trying to bring Parliament into disrepute. Some Opposition MPs also spoke in support of Ketagoda, who requested the Speaker to summon the newspaper editors concerned and reprimand them. The Speaker undertook to hold an inquiry. The MPs have a right to protest if they think their privileges have been violated, and similarly the media cannot be denied their right to publish reports in the public interest.

The manner in which government and Opposition politicians sink their differences and form a united front when they feel their interests are threatened reminds us of something Ranjan Ramanayake once said of them to a journalist: “Mung okkoma yaluwo, malli—all of them are friends, bro!”

Newspaper editors, or all journalists for that matter, have better things to do than to conspire to denigrate the national legislature, whose dignity must be preserved for the sake of democracy. It is the unruly MPs who tarnish the image of Parliament irreparably. It may be recalled that some of the present-day ruling party MPs unleashed terror in the House, when they were in the Opposition, following a failed power grab in 2018. They even tried to gherao the then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, set upon the then ruling party MPs, overturned the Speakers’ chair, damaged microphones on his desk, assaulted the police and carried out chilli powder attacks.

MP Wijesiri said: “People know the cost of maintaining this parliament. Those who are languishing in queues question the way we spend their money here. There is a gas shortage in the country, but it has not affected the parliament kitchen, which has enough gas to cook food for 225 MPs. We must try to find solutions to their problems.” It is heartening that there is at least a single MP who is willing to put the country before perks and parliamentary privileges and take up the cudgels on behalf of the hapless public. Let MP Wijesiri be commended for his courage to do so. Unfortunately, he was shouted down by those who are out for editors’ scalps.

MP Ketagoda said it was not food that attracted the MPs to Parliament, and they were ready to bring their meals from home and the parliament canteen could be closed down if the Speaker was willing. Nobody is asking for the closure of the parliament canteen, but thousands of eateries and even restaurants that cater to foreign tourists who bring in much-needed dollars have put up the shutters for want of cooking gas.

Sri Lankans are a generous lot. They feed even strangers and stray animals despite their economic woes. So, they never make an issue of food served at the parliament canteen, and there is no need for the MPs to bring meals from home. But there are other ways in which they could express empathy for the suffering masses. They could leave their super luxury vehicles at home and travel in crowded buses and trains at least occasionally, and join winding queues where the ordinary people wait for hours, if not days, to buy fuel, gas, etc., and see how it is like to be an ordinary citizen. They should also discontinue the practice of seeking medical treatment in private hospitals or overseas and visit the state-run overcrowded hospitals, instead. If they do so, they will feel the need to make a serious effort to improve the people’s lot.