Wednesday 31st December, 2025

The health sector has long been free from the clutches of the likes of Keheliya Rambukwella and his bureaucratic lackeys, but it continues to be plagued by various rackets and frauds, as evident from the shocking Ondansetron scandal. The corrupt survive regime changes and continue their sordid operations, enabling politicians and officials to enrich themselves at the expense of patients.

The National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) has become a metaphor for serious lapses and malpractices. No wonder this country is a dumping ground for substandard and falsified medicines. The absence of proper drug testing facilities has benefited corrupt officials and their political masters alike. Hence successive governments have chosen to allow the status quo to remain while bellowing rhetoric and promising to safeguard patients’ rights and eliminate corruption.

The issue of poor-quality and unsafe drugs has become overpoliticised in this country. The Opposition uses it as a bludgeon to beat the government in power and gain some political mileage. During its Opposition days, the JVP/NPP would bash the then rulers for endangering the lives of patients by allowing substandard or fake drugs to be imported. Today, the boot is on the other foot; those who were accused of striking corrupt pharmaceutical deals are taking up the cudgels for the rights of the sick and inveighing against the JVP/NPP politicians and their loyalists. Partisan politics has thus eclipsed the real issues that need to be addressed to eliminate bribery and corruption in the health sector and ensure drug safety.

The need is not for rhetoric and moral grandstanding. A respected medical professional analyses the issue of poor-quality drugs in Sri Lanka, in an article published on the opposite page today. He has pointed out what needs to be done urgently to find a solution. Dr. B. J. C. Perera has stressed the need for a state-of-the-art laboratory to test medicines. He says drugs must be tested properly before they are released for use, besides being subjected to proper random post-marketing surveillance. At present, the health authorities have to go by manufacturers’ own certification in granting approval for imported pharmaceuticals. There are many other medical professionals, academics and other experts who have studied the issue at hand and provided valuable insights. One can only hope that the government will care to ascertain their views and take steps to ensure drug safety.

Meanwhile, another scandal in the health sector has come to light. Dr. Rukshan Bellana has claimed that he was removed as Deputy Director of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL), Colombo, recently, because he sought to have a reagent racket probed by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption and the CID. Stocks of substandard or contaminated reagents have been procured at the expense of the state coffers for the NHSL laboratory, Dr. Bellana has alleged. This serious allegation must be probed thoroughly.

There is more to the reagent issue than the fraudulent procurement practices. Calls for a pricing formula for reagents to prevent the suppliers from keeping the prices of those products unconscionably high have been ignored. It must be made mandatory for the import prices of all reagents to be revealed so that massive profit margins cannot be kept at the expense of the public. Successive governments have allowed importers to increase the prices of reagents according to their whims and fancies and drive the cost of testing up. Health sector trade unions have alleged that corrupt practices among politicians and officials who control the procurement process are also responsible for the extremely high prices of reagents.

The health sector is a swamp that must be drained as a national priority without further delay if the interests of patients are to be safeguarded. The JVP/NPP, came to power, claiming that the country had been under a 76-year curse and promising to break it. But going by the sheer number of corrupt deals reported from various public institutions, the politicisation of state institutions, especially the police, and the government’s despicable efforts to appoint one of its cronies as the Auditor General, one wonders whether the ‘curse’ has been extended by one year.

If the government is serious about eliminating corruption in state-run health institutions, first of all, it should develop a proper understanding of the multi-faceted nature of the issue. Only a special probe, presidential or parliamentary, will help grasp its enormity and determine how best to tackle it.

Tuesday 30th December, 2025

Sri Lanka Customs is on cloud nine, boasting that it has set a revenue record. It says it has raised more than Rs. 2,497 million, which is in excess of the targets set by the government for the current year. An increase in state revenue is certainly a very positive development, but how that goal has been achieved should be revealed to the public.

There have been exponential tax increases and they have enabled the government to boost its revenue significantly. The Customs Department has been able to meet its revenue targets thanks to the lifting of restrictions on vehicle imports after a lapse of several years and tax hikes. The Customs has admitted that taxes on imported vehicles have amounted to about Rs. 870 billion in 2025. Thus, one can argue that vehicle imports have created a revenue bubble, which may not last long. An increase in the Customs’ revenue has come at the expense of the rupee, which is depreciating. So, there is no cause for celebration, and the government has to tread cautiously.

Spokesman for the Customs Chandana Punchihewa, addressing the media yesterday, blamed cargo clearance delays on a container backlog created by Cyclone Ditwah. Extreme weather events no doubt cause delays in ports, but in this country port delays occur even during long spells of fine weather. Protracted delays in the Colombo Port, in January 2025, led to the release of 323 red-flagged containers without Customs inspection. What they carried is anybody’s guess.

Excuses are of no use where port delays are concerned. Delays ruin ports, for they drive away major shipping lines. It has been reported that several international shipping lines have opted to bypass the Colombo Port, which is facing escalating congestion due to various factors related mainly to capacity and efficiency—not adverse weather as such. The Customs cannot absolve itself of responsibility for this sorry state of affairs in the Colombo Port, which has also been facing strategic neglect.

As we argued in a previous comment on port congestion, the Ports Authority, the government and the Customs must formulate a strategy to eliminate delays. If the Customs cannot cope with the situation, the Coast Guard personnel can be called in to help clear cargo; they are qualified to handle such tasks. The government ought to take cognisance of formidable challenges Sri Lanka faces from the other ports in the region, especially India’s newly built Vizhinjam port, which is becoming a major attraction for international shippers who are averse to delays. In global logistics, shipping lines place very high value on on-time delivery, reliability and efficient operations.

The government must make a serious effort to enhance the efficiency and capacity of the Colombo Port to retain the transshipment traffic historically routed via Colombo. There is a strong possibility of shipping lines rerouting feeder services away from Colombo to Vizhinjam, adversely impacting Colombo’s network role, as we have said previously, quoting shipping experts.

Vizhinjam has several key advantages over Colombo. It advertises itself as a deep-water port with a 24 m natural draft, which enables it to accommodate ultra-large container vessels without dredging; its proximity to the main east–west shipping route helps vessels to call without significant deviation, reducing voyage time and costs. Automation, modern cranes, faster turnaround times, enhanced operational efficiency and attractiveness to shipping lines are other advantages India’s new port has over Colombo.

Sri Lanka Customs may brag about its ‘revenue record’, but it must not lose sight of the need to enhance its productivity in view of challenges from other ports in the region to Colombo. It should reveal how it is going to meet the revenue targets set by the government when vehicle imports decrease, causing the current revenue bubble to burst.

Monday 29th December, 2025

Sri Lankan politicians love the media dearly and take up the cudgels for the rights of journalists when they are out of power. The JVP/NPP leaders also defended the media to the hilt while they were languishing in the Opposition. Jekylls become Hydes after being ensconced in power, with the media exposing their failures and malpractices. Those who can, do; those who cannot, attack the media, one may say of the governments in this country, with apologies to Bernard Shaw.

The JVP-led NPP government, angered by bad press, is all out to intimidate the media it cannot control. Previous governments had the police on a string and used them to attack and harass independent journalists. The incumbent administration has gone a step further; the police have reportedly written to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), asking for action against Hiru TV for what they describe as broadcasting unverified, misleading news. Thus, the government has used the police to give Hiru a choice between toeing the official line and losing its licence. Thankfully, its efforts have run into stiff resistance, with media institutions and various associations circling the wagons around Hiru.

If the government thinks Hiru or any other media institution disseminates false information to the detriment of its interests, legal avenues are available for it to seek redress. The police must not be used as a political tool to intimidate the media.

Among the current defenders of the media are the SLPP, the UNP, the SLFP, etc. Their leaders are shedding copious tears for Hiru. But it was while the UNP and SLPP leaders were in power that the suppression of media freedom and violence against journalists became institutionalised for all intents and purposes. UNP governments not only throttled media freedom but also murdered journalists. SLFP regimes had media institutions attacked and journalists killed. An SLFP-led government, with the current SLPP leaders at the helm, had media institutions torched and journalists abducted, assaulted and murdered. These sinners currently in the political wilderness are condemning other sinners in power for suppressing media freedom.

The government deserves the bad press it gets. The police have been reduced to a mere appendage of the JVP/NPP. Two of the NPP’s Retired Police Collective members, namely former Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne and former SSP Shani Abeysekera, have been appointed Secretary to the Public Security Ministry and CID Director, respectively. Absurd claims the police make in defence of the government remind us of Matilda, whose dreadful lies made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes.

When the police were asked why NPP MP Asoka Ranwala had not been subjected to a breathalyser test immediately after a recent road accident he caused, they had the chutzpah to claim they had run out of test kits. They transferred two of their officers over the incident to enable the government to save face. They arrested one of their own men assaulted by an NPP MP following a recent police raid on a cannabis cultivation in Suriyakanda. Acting just like legendary King Kekille, they let the MP off the hook and arrested the policeman, who was bailed out; they went on to suspend him from service. A few months ago, they unashamedly sided with a group of JVP cadres who stormed a Frontline Socialist Party office in Yakkala and forcibly occupied it. They go out of their way to ensure that the arrests of drug dealers with links to the Opposition get maximum possible publicity, but they do their best to keep the media in the dark when narcotics dealers with ruling party connections are taken into custody. They crack down on Opposition politicians and activists but steer clear of government members and their supporters. The despicable manner in which they are doing political work for the government reminds us of the Gestapo. Now, they are zeroing in on Hiru TV at the behest of their political masters for exposing their sordid actions.

The only way the NPP government can overcome problems and challenges on the political front and shore up its crumbling image is to mend its ways and fulfil its election pledges while taking action against its errant members who have brought it into disrepute and turned public opinion against it. Shooting the messenger is not the way to set about the task.