Ceylon Today Editorial

OMP NOW A SWORD OF DAMOCLES

 25 August 2016

President Sirisena's swift response to resignations by the SLFP's Matara and Homagama leaders, replacing Bandula Gunawardena and Dullas Alahapperuma with Gamini Thilakasiri and Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, respectively, made evident the fact that the SLFP leader is not short of options when it comes to a matter of crisis management in the Party. We've been stressing the inevitability of this major split in the Party ever since President Sirisena took that stunning step to challenge Rajapaksa at the Presidential poll... and win! He owed most of that victory to UNP, TNA and Muslim votes.

But back of this is an even more politically significant fact in that it underscores the massive extent to which Rajapaksa lost political coherence and control of direction in the shocking aftermath of his ouster from power.

The current state of affairs in the government and especially in SLFP affairs clearly shows that the current President is more in control of his wits, and hence in his strategic moves, than Rajapaksa, the former President is. In this game of political chess, the President is an easy frontrunner...at least for now. What can be more unnerving for Rajapaksa and the Joint Opposition is the fact that, even though Sirisena at that time had no moral or constitutional right to the SLFP leadership, especially in the context of the SLFP Constitution, he has grabbed the chance that history handed him on a platter when Rajapaksa relinquished the SLFP leadership to him without a fight. By relinquishing that position Rajapaksa squandered his only weapon to make a come-back bid. Today, Sirisena has assiduously and diligently built on that opportunity and has asserted himself as the real leader of the SLFP. Rajapaksa is left with a residual of the Party, and some leftist members, making up the JO which has become a less than pathetic challenge to Sirisena.

So what has happened is that from the comparatively weak position as President fielded by the real Joint Opposition comprising the UNP, SLMC, TNA and other minor parties, Sirisena has with almost a remarkable nonchalance ambled into the position of being paradoxically the real leader of the opposition to the slfp while also being leader of the slfp at the same time...a unique paradox at that!
In addition to all this, the President is obviously also inundated with economic, trade, financial, military and diplomatic support from the West and, along with Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, would appear to have weathered every storm and emerged as the head of a government that's now seemingly growing in strength domestically as well as globally.

History will record his period of transition from one power bloc to another, under the Sirisena dispensation, as perhaps the most dramatic in the nation's post-independence history. We wrote six months ago that Rajapaksa would have to invent a new strategy for a successful come-back bid. That strategy spluttered and collapsed in a trek from Kandy that ended in Colombo. If he called the Presidential election and made the successive 'moves' based on numerology, it's been a waste of time that has seen Sirisena consolidate his grip on the Party, forcing Rajapaksa's back to the wall in measured moves which even his keenest detractors reluctantly acknowledge.

As we go to print, there's talk of what the JO will do, now that Speaker Jayasuriya has sanctioned the OMP Bill, adding it to the Constitution.

This can be most unnerving because of the wide powers the OMP is vested with, which will be used with devastating effect against the former regime... meaning Rajapaksa.

We predict that the OMP will go down in Lankan history as the single most powerful piece of legislation, which the greater part of the SLFP on Sirisena's side voted for. That makes the OMP in effect a de facto SLFP approval of a probe into the role of the Rajapaksas, whether by commission, or omission, in allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is what makes the OMP such a powerful weapon in Sirisena's , Wickremesinghe's and Chandrika Bandaranaikle's hands. And that's precisely why Rajapaksa was its most vociferous opponent. That's yet another victory that Sirisena tucks under his belt.

The Kandy-Colombo trek was meant to rouse a massive public response that could have been used to thwart the passage of the OMP Bill into the Constitution. It failed. 8.1.2015 as well as 1.8.2016, have both backfired. Should the slide continue, the JO could be rehearsing its Swan Song.

Daily News Editorial

Food Safety

 25 August 2016

The National Food Safety Week, currently underway, is an opportunity to take stock of issues concerning food safety, labelling, security and habits. The Food Safety Week began on August 23 (Tuesday) and will end on August 29.

One of the main aims of the Food Safety Week organised by the Health Ministry is detecting instances of traders selling dry or fresh food items which are either expired or unfit for human consumption. Accordingly, legal action was instituted against 137 shop owners islandwide during the first day of the National Food Safety Week, Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry sources said.

Under the direct supervision of Health Services Director General Dr. Palitha Mahipala, inspections were carried out targeting around 3,200 restaurants, shops, canteens, eateries and hotels with the participation of more than 1,800 Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) during the first day of the National Food Safety Week. They will especially target all the places which offer food, beverages and sanitary facilities to passengers of long distance buses. It has been found that food handling and storage conditions as well as sanitary facilities at most of these places are not at a satisfactory level.

Action is to be taken against all vendors who have violated safety norms and regulations. Attention should also be paid to general cleanliness of tables, cooking containers and surfaces and plates and cutlery – we often see rats scurrying about in eating places and cats and dogs sleeping on Kottu and roti tables. The quality of water used for washing and cooking food and cleaning plates etc. must also be examined.

During the inspection, the PHIs have also found about 1,722 soft drinks without colour codes. They have directed the shop owners to return them to the relevant manufacturing and marketing companies. The “traffic light” system for identifying the sugar content of soft drinks and similar foods (Red for high sugar content, Amber for moderate/medium and Green for low/zero) is still a relatively new concept and we feel that manufacturers should be given some more time to fall in line.

In the meantime, shop owners cannot be faulted for stocking items without the colour codes, because there is still little awareness about this programme. There should be a bigger campaign on the print and electronic media on this traffic light classification system.

Until this system is perfected and possibly widened to include other foods such as biscuits (which also have high sugar content), all consumers should heed the general advice of nutritionists – if sugar comes first in the ingredients list of any food item, just avoid it at all costs. It is thus vital for all consumers to read the food labels fully, even though most consumers now look for the expiry dates carefully. This information will help avoid the health complications of consuming foods with a high sugar content, such as diabetes and tooth decay.

One of the main subjects taught at hotel school is food science, which includes vital lessons on food storage and handling. This knowledge is not available to the retail trader or to the cook in the run of the mill “hotels” found in every street corner. There are foods that cannot be stored together, some foods require specific storage temperatures and conditions and some others perish rather quickly.

Most retail traders are in the habit of turning off their freezers and refrigerators at night apparently to avoid high electricity bills, without realizing the health implications. Foods such as raw and processed meats are especially vulnerable to temperature fluctuations – there have been many cases of food poisoning and even deaths due to the consumption of such foods which have gone stale. And there is simply no benefit to be gained by turning the freezer off – when it is switched on again in the morning, it will run at a stretch for a few hours to make up for the lost time and temperature, thereby running up an even bigger bill.

Food waste is another grey area that gets little attention. The disposal of food waste and household garbage has become a huge issue in Colombo and the main cities. Households could minimize food waste by cooking to suit the number of people and meal times. Remember that there are millions of hungry people worldwide – food is a precious resource that should not be wasted.

The other type of food waste is even more heart wrenching. In Sri Lanka, Post-Harvest Losses (PHL) of various crops in handling, transport and storage is exceedingly common. We have seen pictures of tonnes of various crops rotting by the wayside mostly due to excess harvests. We have to evolve strategies to avoid PHL and also to make use of excess yields in some way. For example, certain fruits can be canned. The possibility of exports too has to be explored. This also ties in with the important aspect of food security. Faced with these challenges, the authorities must strengthen the laws and regulations on food safety and security to ensure a healthy, disease-free society.

The Island Editorial

An opportunity to rectify a grave error

25 August 2016

The government came under fire from the Opposition in Parliament on Tuesday over the Office on Missing Persons Bill (OMPB), which the Speaker is said to have signed into law. Even the JVP, which is for the OMPB, insisted that some of the amendments including those it proposed had not been accommodated. Urged to resubmit the Bill with amendments to Parliament again Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella said he would explore the possibility of doing so. Will he prove that he is a man of his word?

The Joint Opposition (JO) and the JVP accused the government of rigging a vote on a supplementary estimate in Parliament about three months ago. Some of the MPs were not in their seats when the vote was taken. The chair and the parliamentary staff took the count wrong and declared the estimate passed, but subsequently, it had to be submitted again. The OMPB was also ‘passed’ under similar circumstances. The House was in turmoil with some Opposition MPs protesting in the well of parliament when it was ‘ratified’.

A minister told the media the following day that the government had mustered a two-thirds majority for the Bill, but he was unable to say how many MPs had supported it!

The JO’s failure to challenge the OMPB in courts cannot be cited in extenuation of the deplorable manner in which it was ‘ratified’. The government, which claims to practise good governance, should have sought the opinion of the apex court, suo motu, on the Bill and rid it of the section inconsistent with the Constitution and other questionable features the Opposition has taken exception to.

Everybody is at sea as regards the amendments which are said to have been incorporated into the OMPB; it is not clear whether some controversial features thereof such as Section 11 have been retained or obviated. This particular section gives the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) untramelled powers to ‘enter into agreements with any person or organisation, whether local or foreign’ among other things. It is being argued in some quarters that if this provision has not been done away with the OMP will even be able to enlist the support of the International Criminal Court!

As we have pointed out in this space previously the OMPB, in its original form, sought to whittle down the powers of the executive president further by making Constitutional Council (CC) recommendations mandatory in respect of the appointment of personnel to the Office on Missing Persons (OMP); this kind of additional responsibility given to the CC amounts to further curtailment of the powers of the executive president elected directly by the people and, therefore, the OMPB, according to the original draft, was a constitutional amendment in all but name. The OMPB was not consistent with the Constitution. Article 82 (1) states: "No Bill for the amendment of any provision of the Constitution shall be placed on the Order Paper of Parliament, unless the provision to be repealed, altered or added, and consequential amendments, if any, are expressly specified in the Bill and is described in the long title thereof as being an Act for the amendment of the Constitution." What would the legal pundits of the government say to this?

It is a pity that even the self-appointed guardians of democracy including western governments and NGOs have welcomed the seriously flawed OMPB in spite of the controversial manner in which it has been ‘passed’.

The government has set a very bad precedent which has made a mockery of its avowed commitment to good governance. The Opposition’s protests against the OMPB must be heeded and remedial action taken.