Ceylon Today Editorial

Good Guy Bopage

22 December 2016

Sri Lankans have a disgusting tendency to grant power to those who don't require it and venerate them until the power gets to their head. The power corrupts the individual and in return they gradually destroy the person who brought them to power. Politicians are the perfect example for this. It has become such a common occurrence that you, the reader, probably have a few examples in your head while reading this.

We have this notion that people who control power have to be respected, venerated like local deities even though it was through our intervention that they have come into power. We stand up to show respect when a politician walks into a room. We bend and greet them while they stand straight, basking in the glory that we give them. Utter foolishness, yet we do it anyway. Every now and then, we come across those rare personalities that put their beliefs and ideology before their position and governing authority. Nimal Bopage is one such character.

Nimal Bopage currently holds the position of Secretary to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Mass Media. He was assigned his seat in the Ministry, following the arrival of the Yahapalana Government under the Sirisena- Wickremesinghe administration. Since then, Bopage has had several fleeting moments of fame as the Ministry Secretary due to several poorly worded press communiqués. Since then he has become sort of a laughing stock among the mainstream media institutions.

However, all the jokes and the pun makers that ridiculed him yesterday are praising him for his actions today. Bopage recently claimed that he cannot sign the Cabinet Memorandum that authorized the purchase of 58 luxury vehicles for MPs at the cost of Rs 700,000 a month, due to several irregularities in the process.

According to him, the purchase of vehicles which was authorized in a Cabinet Memo earlier this year, has not received the approval of the President as well as the Technical Evaluation Committee and the Procurement Committee. He added that there is an obvious complication in purchasing 58 vehicles on 60 instalments by MPs whose term in Parliament ends in 45 months. He added that after expiry of their tenures as MPs the vehicles will be re-acquired by the purchaser despite the government's expenditure on the vehicles.

He argued that the purchase is irrefutably expensive even to a layman's understanding. Paying Rs 700,000 a month for a luxury car is a ridiculous attempt. If the government decides to reduce the instalment months to suit the 45 months, then the instalment payment of Rs 700,000 would increase to some atrocious Rs 900, 000 per vehicle, per month. All this for the MP's to do supervision activities of the government's development projects – an excuse that one cannot help but laugh at because it simply amounts to a rather sick joke.

More so, once the 60 instalment months are due, the vehicles will be returned to its original owner. Bopage's refusal to sign the Cabinet Memo is a highly commendable act. Despite the Prime Minister demanding that he should either sign the Cabinet Memo, approving the purchase of vehicles or resign from the position of Ministry Secretary, he stands firm with his principles.

"I cannot go forward with this without ironing out these issues," he insisted. These are the type of public servants this country deserves. These are the type of public servants, every other public servant who prefers to do absolutely nothing, should strive to become. It could be their New Year's resolution. If they are going to continue doing nothing, at least it should be for a cause that would serve a purpose and give a message. The public servant's actions should portray his strong principles and force of will.

After all, a public servant is the backbone of a country's government. If one is corrupt, the other shall be the same – the current plight we have had the bad luck of facing. It is once in a blue moon that this messed up system sees a good public servant like Nimal Bopage.

Daily News Editorial

SLFP should buckle down

22 December 2016

Certain quarters in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party have developed a phobia in regard to a so called Super Minister. Some have already gone on overdrive vowing to resist the creation of such a post with might and main. They say that the passage of the Development (Special Provisions) Bill, gazetted on November 25, would lead to the creation of a Super Minister. Some Ministers in the SLFP are also habouring fears that the Super Minister will encroach on their preserves.

Petroleum Resources Development Minister Chandima Weerakkody has already read out the riot act. Says he; “If there is a move for a so-called Super Minister such an attempt will not be accommodated by this government, particularly the SLFP”, as reported in our main story yesterday. He is however not opposed to a framework to regulate the development process by accelerating economic growth and facilitating foreign direct investment.

SLFPers, particularly those who held ministerial office under Rajapaksa, opposing the concept of a Super Minister is quite understandable. As Weerakkody himself stated, they had a bitter experience under a Super Minister in their time and is not prepared to relive the experience. His fears are not unfounded. Like the popular local saying goes, ginipellen beta kapu miniha kalamediriyatath bayai which roughly translated reads the man who was clubbed by a firebrand is frightened even of a firefly. That Super Minister, as Weerakkody admitted, was solely responsible for the downfall of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

But far from causing the downfall of the government, what is envisaged by the proposed legislation is the creation of a Ministry that will coordinate all development activities in order to accelerate and streamline the process. There will be no stepping on the corns of the Provincial Councils by the creation of such a Ministry, as the Prime Minister has assured.

It regrettable indeed that the SLFP has viewed this whole matter from a narrow perspective. That is to be expected, given the party’s retrogressive policies in the past that left the economy stagnant and moribund. What is needed today is progressive thinking and thinking out of the box. The era of living on slogans is now over, the SLFPers in the government, it is hoped, would understand. Political bickering has taken the country backwards. A rare opportunity has presented itself where the two main political parties are jointly at the levers of power. The maximum benefit should be obtained from this opportunity.

It is readily accepted that the UNP had right along being good administrators and known for innovative thinking and fresh concepts. It introduced the open economy in Sri Lanka before India even thought of it. The SLFPers may be uncomfortable to be in be a milieu that is quite alien to them. But they should learn to coexist and corporate with the UNP which posses the necessary skills and wherewithal to take the economy forward. It is also regrettable that the SLFP ministers in the government are providing ammunition to the Joint Opposition for its political project to undermine the government and wreck the economy. It will be virtually playing into the hands of the JO if the SLFP segment of the government continues to stick to its guns and oppose the Bill on the grounds that it would lead to the creation of a Super Minister.

President Sirisena, as leader of the SLFP, should prevail on party members not to rock the boat at this stage. After all, it (the SLFP) has entered into a pact with the UNP to govern together for a full five years. Whatever credit that the UNP expertise would bring would also accrue to the SLFP by virtue of being partners of the government. The SLFP of course should acquit itself with modern thinking and not indulge in playing to the gallery. It should shed its populist image and accept reality. Some SLFP stalwarts are still living in the Bandaranaike era and do not hesitate to invoke the pancha balamaha vegaya and other such time worn shibboleths.

The party should move forward with the times, embracing new and innovative concepts. There are even murmurings among some SLFP ministers about the agreement with China to develop Hambantota, overlooking the fact that this was the best deal for the country that released us from an astronomical debt obligation. All this, therefore, is a boost to the JO campaign. Hence the SLFP should steer clear from being critical of the UNP, with which it is cohabiting as a government and stop giving mileage to the JO propaganda drive. Conflicts are bound to rise as in the case of all coalition governments, chiefly on policy matters. But these could be ironed out within, instead giving a handle to the government’s opponents bash it with. Garrulous SLFPers, such as Dilan Perera, who has a penchant for bad mouthing the PM in public should be reined in.

Hitherto, both parties took different paths in almost all spheres, be it economic, social, cultural etc. Now there is an opportunity for the two chief protagonists to work together to take the country in a single direction. Let no one from either party pay spoiler and wreck this opportunity.

The Island Editorial

Dreams with V8 engines

22 December 2016

What most people, crushed under a massive economic burden, wish for is a square meal. But, well-nourished political endomorphs have no such worries. Every day is Christmas for them. For, Santa is apparently resident in Parliament and takes care of all their needs. Now, they get pocket money to the tune of Rs. 100,000 each a month!

Power is highly addictive and fuels greed and ambitions. Elvis Presley it was who famously likened ambition to a dream with a V8 engine. Many politicians are adept at camouflaging their ambitions; they remind us of Macbeth, who says in an aside, ‘Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.’ There are, however, times when some of them happen to betray their innermost feelings unwittingly.

Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne has said at a public function recently a scholar told him that he is fit to rule the country because of his struggle against the mighty tobacco industry to save the public. He, no doubt, deserves praise for having hit the tobacco giant where it hurts most; he has become a marked target in the process. He has also undertaken to tame Big Pharma and make drug prices affordable. Let him be given the credit for that too; he deserves encouragement and assistance from the public.

We, however, choose to remain non-committal about the eligibility or otherwise of the Health Minister to rule the country.

Many are the politicians and civil society activists who claim the credit for last year’s regime change. Senaratne is one of them. Victory is said to have a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan. It is not surprising that the ruling coalition is full of born-to-rule types or presidential aspirants. The dental surgeon turned Health Minister’s claim at issue may have prompted the wannabe presidents in the ruling coalition say, "Hell’s teeth, we have another contender!"

There is a little known political party, whose name is a classical example of paradox, Okkoma Wasiyo Okkoma Rajavaru or ‘All are subjects and all are kings’. This kind of egalitarianism is possible only in a utopian society as far as the ordinary people are concerned, but the ruling politicians with king-sized egos and intoxicated with power seem to think they are all kings or okkoma rajavaru.

Dreams powered by V8 engines have made the ruling grandees renege on their promise to campaign for abolishing the executive presidency, which they are now eyeing. It was a bunch of sour grapes for them while they were in the political wilderness. Now that they think it is within their reach, they want to retain it. They are salivating at the prospect of securing the much coveted post. They must be in the same dilemma as Macbeth, who in the aforesaid aside considers the Prince of Cumberland an obstacle in his path: ‘That is a step on which I must fall down or else o’erleap.’

If music is the food of love, then Sri Lankans may agree that the food of treachery is hoppers. It is likely that Dr. Senaratne may be served anything at his bosses’ dinners but hoppers, which the incumbent President is said to have had with his former boss President Rajapaksa on the eve of his defection to challenge the latter in the last presidential race.

Here is some gratuitous advice for the presidential or prime ministerial aspirants in the two main parties. They had better refrain from making public their dreams lest they should put themselves in the cross hairs of their political masters and other ruthless ambitious elements. We have witnessed political versions of the Night of the Long Knives on several occasions in the SLFP, the UNP and the JVP.

Had President Maithripala Sirisena made his presidential ambitions known prematurely as a member of the Rajapaksa Cabinet he would not have been able to contest last year’s presidential election; he would have been either reduced to a political nonentity overnight or even framed and thrown behind bars perhaps into the cell which had become vacant upon the release of the then Gen. Sarath Fonseka a couple of years back. The price he had to pay for staking a claim to premiership is only too well known. Ironically, the boot is now on the other foot.

Let Dr. Senaratne be wished good luck!