Daily News Editorial

Early Santa arrival for our MPs?

23 September 2016

It appears that Santa is knocking on the doors of our erstwhile peoples’ representatives, three months ahead, if what Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said is any indication. Premier Wickremesinghe speaking in Parliament on Wednesday said the government was mulling on a salary increase to all MPs.

Speaking on the debate on salary increase and revision of allowance given to the members of the Bribery Commission, the Premier said the matter of the MPs salaries will be taken up next. The PM, according to an English daily, has said that the MPs have been deprived of good salaries and that they were underpaid. Assuring that he would address members’ salary issue in the future he said that good persons cannot be appointed as members of the Independent Commissions without ensuring that they were paid well.

True. “good persons”, meaning professionals and technocrats, would have to be necessarily paid good salaries if they are to be attracted into government service. This is because these individuals will have to forgo their professional carriers and high emoluments to devote their time and energies to serve the state. In the process they may lose a sizable portion of their income which otherwise would have accrued to them if they had continued in their original professions. This is especially true with regard to the legal profession, where the official concerned has a lucrative practise. Hence nobody will object to the salary rise granted to the Bribery Commissioner and members of her staff.

However it is moot that the public will stand for any salary increase granted to MPs who are already a pampered lot, commanding huge salaries, in addition to other perks and privileges such as subsidized meals, duty free vehicles(which are invariably sold), unlimited fuel, free housing, telephone, foreign jaunts etc. This at a time they (public) has been forced to shoulder additional burdens by way of increase in the VAT and other levies that would have a direct impact on the cost of living and in the lifestyles of many.

True, the salary increase earmarked for Parliamentarians several months prior to this was shelved by the government as a result of the public outcry due to the government decision to increase VAT on a slew of consumer items. Nothing has changed since then and a pay hike to our MPs at this stage cannot be justified by any means.

Besides our MPs have not given any plausible reason to justify this salary increase, if in fact a salary increase in on the cards. Their general conduct in the August Assembly is still left mush to be desired although things have calmed down somewhat in recent times.

The late President J. R. Jayawardene openly declared in public that his MPs salaries should be increased. That way he said they would be out of temptation’s way. But the whole country knows what happened, with CBK going to town with her Dhooshanaya, Bheeshanaya slogans that brought an end to 17 years of UNP rule. Things did not get any better either with more of the same under CBK rule that ended with an exponential rise in bribery and corruption under the Rajapaksa dispensation that followed.

Hence enhanced emoluments to MPs will not see an end to corruption. In fact in most cases the salaries of MPs are mere tokens, as we saw during the last regime, when government Ministers engaged in their illegal businesses and rackets such as the illegal import of ethanol and the operation of private distilleries. Besides, the unity government will not endear itself to the public by doling out largesse to MPs at a time they are forced to pay additional taxes, knowing that their representatives will be sponging on them.

True, all MPs across the board stand to benefit, the one issue on which they all close ranks. But, going by the various corruption allegations against certain members of the Opposition who are said to have amassed billions, stashed away in foreign banks and many of them paraded before various commissions almost on a daily basis, the public would naturally want to know if these same crooks and swindlers are going to be rewarded, instead of punished, at their expense.

Be that as it may, the government should act with circumspection on the matter of salary increases to Parliamentarians. There is already a growing resentment over the multifarious privileges enjoyed by MPs at the expense of tax payer, and the opulent lifestyles they lead. This, while the estate workers are demanding a daily wage of Rs. 600 a day and teachers and minor employees in many a state institution are seen demonstrating on the roads almost on a daily basis demanding wage hikes for a couple of thousand rupees.

It is hoped that sanity will prevail and the proposed salary hike shelved, at least for the time being, until the economy sees a turn around, as promised by the government, in the near future.