Weekend Nation Editorial

Public-private partnership, the way forward

11 September 2016
 

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently told Parliament that unless there was a partnership between the private and public sectors, SriLankan Airlines, the Mattala Airport and the Hambantota Port would have to be closed down. He said that the volume of debts obtained on behalf of these institutions were too heavy for the government of Sri Lanka to pay back especially as all of them were making heavy losses.

This is definitely an indictment on the ability of the government to run business. If you look at the past such instances are many. The bus services that were running at profit under the private companies became loss making entities when they were nationalized and placed under the Ceylon Transport Board. Profit making plantations became financially nonviable entities when they were taken over by the government. Losses were so heavy, after many years the government had to restructurethe plantations and give them to the private sector for management under long-term leases.

Then there are other government-owned businesses such as the Electricity Board, Railways, Petroleum Corporation and so on which could easily become cash cows under proper management,but they are causing huge losses under governmental control. This happens mainly because of politicization of the management which in effect creates a situation where the workers are rewarded on political affiliations and not on their performance while another major reason is excess workers recruited for political reasons. This has become the bane of most government owned enterprises.

Even the state institutions which are not making losses are not making the type of profits that they should make. This means that there are no adequate returns from the assets owned by these institutions when compared to the private sector. Earning sufficient income for a growing population is a challenge for any government and the situation become worse when the country’s resources are not effectively utilized. That is why it is not advisable for any country to continue to own loss making entities for long. Treasury absorption of these losses means indirectly passing the burdens on to the people and this unfortunately is not understood by the majority of them.

However, fully privatizing of some of these state enterprises is not favoured by many who continue to argue that strategically important entities should remain under state control. Therefore the answer to the problem is public–private partnership which has become a successful model of management in many countries.

The recent convention of the SLFP in a major deviation from its traditional philosophy has emphasized the relevancy of public-private partnerships. One of the resolutions adopted at this convention said “Regarding loss making institutions, the SLFP’s position was that they should be restructured, but the government should have a majority stake when it came to public-private partnerships managing these institutions.” This is a welcome sign and the Prime Minister is not alone when he supported the idea of private sector participation in managing loss making state enterprises. This understanding could make the much needed change in the economy by transforming the loss making state entities to profitable ventures.

Sunday Times Editorial

Are People losing faith in elections?

 11 September 2016

The two main political parties, the UNP and the SLFP at 70 and 65 respectively, celebrated their anniversaries over the past two weeks. In the meantime, however, the National Elections Commission (NEC) has re-launched a campaign to get eligible voters to register for next year because the level of interest has seemingly, waned.

That disinterest among the public is alarming given the fact that voting at elections was one of the high points of Sri Lanka’s democracy. The NEC Chairman didn’t give reasons for the drop in enthusiasm, but the inference can only be attributed to the general apathy creeping in with the political environment in the country. Are people getting tired of elections, and the outcome of such elections? Do they feel their mandate means little or nothing when post-elections see even defeated candidates get ministerial posts?

The Minister of Local Government is like a President’s Counsel seeking dates (postponements) when he has a bad brief. He has now said the long overdue local government elections will be held in February next year, about the third time he has given a date. The time period of 335 local councils around the country lapsed this year, and many last year.

The delay in holding fresh elections has been put on the doorstep of the National Delimitation Commission tasked in 2012 with carving up new wards and relate d matters, and a committee that was to go into complaints on what the Commission has recommended. Yet, the report of the committee has been ready from June this year and it is the Government that is asking it to delay its handing over.

The reasons are clear; the SLFP’s internal strife has to be settled first. There is a real danger that the mainstream SLFP could come a poor third to the UNP and those within the party challenging its agenda – much like what happened to the German Chancellor’s party recently, though for different reasons. In the process, Special Commissioners have been appointed under the Local Authority Act by the Minister. They have been vested with all the powers enjoyed by the elected councillors except to pass resolutions. Sometimes they do a better job than all the elected representatives put together sans political interference; but sometimes they can be disasters.

The Colombo Municipality is currently in bad shape. The capital city’s roads are in shambles. Our INSIGHT story last week pointed out how the mere paving of sidewalks around the proposed Theatre District in Colombo 7 has so far taken nine months and workmen are present for just two hours a day. The report brought a flood of letters this week to the newspaper from irate rate payers from around the country complaining about the roads dug up and little or no work being done in and around where they live, particularly in the densely populated Colombo and the Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia areas. Garbage clearance is at a standstill in some towns and the people are voiceless.

As the people have to grin and bear until the SLFP gets its house in order for the local council polls, the Minister who invoked these Special Commissioners on the orders of the high command will have to take a more pro-active role in seeing they work. No wonder, there is apathy among voters to register.

Lessons from Malaysia

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made waves during his official visit to Sri Lanka last week with some remarks that saw his detractors slamming him – and the UN, for double standards. His local protectors were more loyal than the King himself, or holier than the Pope in defending him. (Ref. page 1 story by our Diplomatic Editor).

After all, with the UN Human Rights Council sessions set to begin next week in Geneva it is understandable that the Government is keen on being in the UN’s good books. While the country was still digesting the UNSG’s flippant remarks in Colombo, not too far away at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, we saw a serious breach of personal and diplomatic security and a gross violation of the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations, Consular Relations and the protection of Diplomatic Conventions. As the media widely reported, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Malaysia was set upon by a group of thugs and mercilessly assaulted. That it happened in a secured area of the airport only compounded the matter.

While the Malaysian Government continues to investigate the incident, the issue of Sri Lanka’s diaspora, especially the pro-Eelam lobby, comes up for investigation as well. The new Government is straining every sinew to win them over. The Foreign Minister has led the crusade, literally going the extra mile to countries like Britain, the United States and Norway, where they are present in their numbers to tell them that, today in Sri Lanka, there is a new and sympathetic Government in power and place. Unfortunately, most ‘Tigers’, don’t lose their stripes.

The fault lies very much with Colombo. Vigilance is the best guarantee of liberty and though the ‘war’ is over with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the bitter after-taste of defeat on the battlefield lingers in some quarters. That is why the Security Forces keep saying to the politicians that mass scale troop withdrawals from the North ought not to be a natural process to defeating the LTTE, and that the UN chief is talking through his cap when he echoes the sentiments of the diaspora asking the Forces to pull out of the North of Sri Lanka. The recent “incident” at the Jaffna University is not to be taken lightly as an isolated “incident”.

Why is there a degree of blame with Colombo? It is because, unlike in the past, no instructions are sent nowadays to Sri Lanka’s missions overseas on how to handle the hostile LTTE-leaning diaspora. In years gone by, Sri Lankan missions received at least two circulars annually on account of ‘Black July” and in November for ‘Mahaveerer Day’ when there are events to commemorate the July 1983 anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka, and the late LTTE leader’s birthday, respectively. Missions were asked to monitor what was happening in their countries and be in close touch with the local law enforcement agencies. Post-2009, after the defeat of the LTTE, the month of May was added to this ‘watch list’ as it was marked as a ‘Genocide Month’.

Since January 2015, all this monitoring has fallen by the wayside and there has been the single-minded pursuit of cultivating the diaspora, but that too, limited to the Global Tamil Forum in the false assumption that it is ‘the sole representative of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora’. This is far from reality, and a large number of mushroom groups, spread over many countries, wanting to make their mark by dramatic events – like what happened in Malaysia last week, are active. Some are dismayed that the Sri Lanka Government is reaching out only to the GTF, which is anyway somewhat like singing to the choir.

The Foreign Ministry’s Counter Terrorism Unit is now defunct and fringe elements peddling the LTTE ideology are having a field day overseas uploading on the web all their anti-Sri Lanka Government events. This is how the ISIS indoctrinates the next generation of radical elements and spurs them on to violent agitation. The Kuala Lumpur incident is therefore an eye-opener for the Government and someone had better take note.

Sunday Observer Editorial

Pragmatism at 70

11 September 2016

 

When party leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, told his party colleagues last week that the United National Party must build a new leadership for the future, he was reflecting a long-standing trait of the 'Grand Old Party' of Sri Lanka: pragmatism. In contrast, many of the UNP's rival political parties are known for powerful ideals that have, sometimes, clouded the strategic thinking of those parties, leading them away from the immediate, practical goals of capturing power and governing.

The principal rival, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, for example, has sometimes been unable to resist the ephemeral glamour of popular nationalism, straying into ethno-centrism, even supremacism, in its effort to present the purest version of that nationalism. Many Left political parties have clung blindly to political-economic doctrine at the expense of practical approaches to the challenges of under-development and post-colonial recovery. Other parties have pursued the glamour of political office by means of opportunistic political manoeuvres, failing to evolve policy platforms that meet actual development challenges and societal needs.

The UNP, however, has not had to perform merely to please an adopted narrow social base in terms of either a specific socio-economic class interest or of ethnic or religious community interest. Unlike some other parties that adopted specific constituencies as their key vote banks, the Grand Old Party, true to its multi-constituency origins, continues to rely on a broad mix of social classes, ethnic communities, castes and other demographics for its vote base. Also, true to the class origins of the prime movers in the colonial freedom movement, the UNP, whose leaders were among those prime movers, has tended to be closer to the interests of the country's capitalist class - the class that took over the reins of nation-building handed to them by the departing colonial rulers. This was less a calculated choice and more the logic of political circumstances within which history-makers must act.

It is perhaps this very modern goal orientation that enabled the UNP, which celebrated its seventieth founding anniversary at its Convention in Colombo yesterday, to consistently engage with the nation at its broadest common interest level - the economy, and basic social needs, irrespective of ethnic, religious or cultural specifics. Hence, it was the UNP which led the way in both building the post-colonial social welfare State and also firmly setting the national economy on a market footing so that the fledgling nation could better engage with the larger world rather than languish in a back alley.

Throughout decades of governing the country, the UNP has been able to triumph electorally without leaning too much on coalitions precisely due to its inclusive conglomerate of social constituencies. At the same time, UNP regimes in the past have also resisted the temptations of dogmatism. Even though the 'open economy' was its key policy plank, neo-liberal economics was not allowed to displace the other major policy pillar of social welfare.

President Premadasa, even while vigorously taking forward the export-led market economic policy, created a State-led, targeted, social safety net programme that addressed the needs of the poorest classes. This was done despite budget-pruning commitments made to the IMF/World Bank. Hopefully this pragmatism will keep doctrine at bay in the future as well.

True to this pragmatism, party leader Wickremesinghe is categorical in his prescription for the future - the grooming of new party leaders based on merit. In this, the UNP is in contrast to its chief rival which cannot yet escape some neo-feudal elements inherent in its resort to ethnic nationalism: loyalties to clan and family as criteria for leadership succession.

The citizenry, then, will wish the GOP well for its future and will look with expectation of more creativity from this party that has made innovation its best practice.
 

That 'G' word

An ad-lib remark by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his speech in Colombo during his recent visit has stirred a hornets' nest. Nationalist sentiments - of a certain kind - seem to have been hurt by the UN Secretary General's somewhat carelessly casual comparison of Sri Lanka's civil war experience with that of some other countries in which certain types of social violence are being described as examples of 'genocide'.

The recent tactic by pro-LTTE groups to equate inevitably high civilian casualties in a fierce war with 'genocide' is spurious, given that the concept of 'genocide' is formally defined with a much broader meaning than simply the mass killing of people. 'Genocide', after all, means the elimination of a 'genus' - that is, a type or identity.

In response to actual world events, 'genocide' has been enshrined in international law as a crime that seeks the elimination of a whole identity of a community and not just the physical elimination of members of a community. Physical elimination of members of a community may be considered as 'genocidal' only if it is seen or acknowledged as being an action that is part of a project to eliminate that community as an identity. In the light of this internationally accepted legal definition of 'genocide', it would be wise for those who are trashing Mr. Moon's offhand remark, to avoid a complete state of denial in the light of this country's history of ethnic conflict. Who can deny that significant elements of a community, such as language, religion, and settled territory, have been systematically denied or belittled?

True, ultra-nationalist ideologues may bring forward arguments to question the 'right' of these aspects of that community to receive recognition or equal treatment. In the light of international law, such arguments risk classification as genocidal ideology. When the LTTE identified the Muslims of Jaffna as 'enemy' and chased them out, this 'ethnic cleansing' too may be similarly classified. More significant to us, Sri Lankans, is the Secretary General's appreciation of the 'self-scrutiny' that is now under way, thanks to the policies of the current National Unity government. We should take pride in Mr. Moon's recognition of the practice of 'paccavekkhna' as taught by the Buddha.

Sunday Island Editorial

The Duminda case

11 September 2016

 

The long awaited verdict in the Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra murder case in which former political grandee Duminda Silva was an accused has been delivered by a three-judge trial-at-bar. This, of course, is not the final word on the matter. The judgment was divided with the presiding judge discharging the accused saying the evidence was contradictory and the accused must have the benefit of the doubt. The convicts have expressed their intention of appealing and there will be further judicial examination of whether the verdict was in accordance with the law. In such matters there is usually no review of the facts. We all know that the appeal process in this country is protracted. How long this will take after the conclusion of a long trial is anybody’s guess. We also know that for many years, in fact decades, nobody has been hanged here and this is unlikely to change at least in the short term. So this is not the end of the story. Many more chapters remain to be written.

What is more important is the question of politicians, leave aside underworld kingpins, bearing arms. The protracted war that was mercifully ended and the JVPs second insurrection resulted in the proliferation of arm in the country on a frightening scale and most of these are unfortunately in the wrong hands. During the long years of the war military deserters and serving soldiers spirited away weapons belonging to the forces and many of these have not yet been recovered. There was a buck to be made in selling these to undesirables and many such bucks have been made. In the worst years of the JVP’s second adventure, there was a real need for the issue of firearms to those at risk and such people – many of them politicians – risked being bumped off. Several such murders in fact did happen justifying arming the vulnerable. In fact, President Jayewardene made the memorable remark that those are risk must make their own security arrangements. The government assisted them with official arms issues.

But in the years after the JVP rebellion was quelled, very little progress was made in recovering the weapons that had been officially issued to politicians for self-defense. Off and on there were media reports of the number of weapons that had not been recovered but such media interest has now waned. While we do know that guns were fired by both sides in the Kolonnawa fracas that led to former political strongman Premachandra’s death, we do not know whether these arms were officially issued either to the politicians involved in the shooting or to their official or unofficial bodyguards. Or were they licensed firearms? All this is information that should be in the public domain. Quite apart from guns, the country situation today does not require veritable armies of armed guards assigned to politicians. Most often such personnel belong mostly to the police and sometimes the forces when there is a serious threat assessment. These personnel often become private armies as was demonstrated in the Kolonnawa shooting that had its semi-finale in the Colombo High Court last week.

It would be edifying to know how big the Presidential Security Division, the Prime Ministerial Security Division, the Ministerial Security Division and other organs responsible for VIP security are. There is no need to labor the fact that the deployment of large armies of men to protect the ever-growing political class would naturally detract from resources available for ordinary law and order functions of the police. This naturally affects ordinary people who pay the taxes that fund these various agencies providing our VIPs with security. It would be foolish for anybody to say that VIPs should not be protected. There are always trigger-happy loonies around and what any one of them might do at a given moment is anybody’s guess. The late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was, at least in the public perception, one of the most tightly protected politicians of his day. But yet an LTTE sniper from a neighboring home was able to fell him with a rifle bullet after he emerged from the swimming pool of his private residence. There was a lot of wisdom after the event but the foul deed was done.

The public are certainly happy that the long convoys of vehicles conducting VIPs on the roads are no longer as visible as they were during the time of the previous regime. But that is not to say that they are altogether absent. Such convoys are occasionally seen even now. The blackened glasses of high-end Mercedes Benz and BMWs do not permit ordinary folk to see who is riding them. Whoever they are, we would presume that there must be a threat perception that necessitates security and the people will not grudge them that. After all there is no purpose in crying over spilt milk or in this case spilt blood. But there is definitely a case for re-looking at how big a problem the non-return of officially issued arms is and also whether there are a reckonable number of stolen military weapons afloat.

It is an unfortunate reality in this country that preemptive measures are seldom taken before problems in many spheres assume explosive proportions. The non-return of an officially issued firearm once the threat is over is a far more serious issue that grabbing a cultivator protecting his crop with an unlicensed shotgun or a galkatas as country made firearms are commonly known.