The Island Editorial

Winged leaders

17 October 2016

 

It looks as if the government politicians were vying with one another to visit the most number of countries in the least possible time. More abroad than here, they seem to be making up for lost time. Most of what they do overseas can be easily left to the Foreign Minister. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not take kindly to the Sri Lankan leaders’ globetrotting cynics say. For, he seems determined to set a world record as the most travelled leader in the world and does not want competition from lesser ones in neighbouring countries, especially those who don his trademark jacket.

President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya are currently overseas and there is no political leader to helm the ship of state at present. Don’t they keep each other informed of their foreign travel schedules so as to ensure that all three of them won’t be away from the country at the same time? 

One may argue that the present-day leaders’ foreign travel costs the public purse much less than those of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who used to take planeloads of politicians, officials and cronies wherever he went. Had he travelled as much as Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo, the cost of his junketing alone would have plunged the country’s economy in a far worse crisis than the one Greece finds itself in at present. But, the question is whether the country has gained anything from the government leaders’ overseas travel and the plethora of much-publicised agreements they ink with their foreign counterparts. If so, how would one explain the financial difficulties of the government due to lack of foreign aid and investment?

A few weeks ago President Sirisena took the members of the Central Provincial Council to task for seeing the world at the expense of the taxpayers. If there is one thing that people’s representatives at all three levels of government do without fighting among themselves it is junketing. The President’s consternation is understandable; people’s money must not be wasted.

Politicians learn nothing during their foreign trips. They do not care at least to study how other countries dispose of municipal waste without polluting the environment. They often go to Singapore for shopping, medical treatment and, according to their opponents, hatching plots. It is a pity that they do not visit the trash processing plants in the city state and make a serious effort to learn how to tackle the seemingly intractable garbage problem here. Instead, they apparently prefer to dump municipal waste in suburbs of Colombo and other cities and wait till fires erupt thereon. We are not so naïve as to expect our politicians to learn from other countries how to achieve progress in fields such as science and technology.

It is a crime to spend public funds on politicians’ foreign junkets. The same goes for their bosses who preach vedi bana (or what they do not practise themselves) to one and all. A fish, as we keep saying in this space, rots from the head down.

In a way the developed nations cannot be faulted for not helping this country financially. Going by the colossal waste of public funds our politicians indulge in unflinchingly their foreign counterparts may be wary of granting us aid lest their taxpayers’ money should go down the gurgler. You don’t want to give any money to spendthrift beggars, do you?

The government, in a bid to justify increasing the tax burden and curtailing public welfare, keeps telling the people that it is in dire financial straits. If so, its leaders must adopt austerity measures and set an example for others to follow.