Ceylon Today Editorial

TALL STORIES AND HALLUCINATIONS

01 February 2017

Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne is on record as having said that the probe into the MIG deal during the tenure of the previous government will reveal many truths. But before we come to that, can we at least have some truths about what's happening about the dozens of yet unsolved cases before the FCID, CIABOC and Courts?

If the Minister expects us to tremulously hold our breaths until then, he's on another planet. The reality on planet Earth is that the FCID and CIABOC have proved themselves as incompetent as a scout cub on a game hunt in the wilds of Africa. In this case however, the analogy is used not too accurately because at least the Boy Scout can stake a rightful claim to not being bribed by the men in the Wild Life Department to let the animals escape which is more or less the story down here in Colombo.

A weekend paper said recently that it's been seven long years, since Lasantha Wickrematunga was done to death by elements in the former regime, that MPs and other journalists were killed, maimed or euphemistically said to have disappeared." Billions of rupees have been spirited out of the country by top men of the former regime but these two bribery and fraud agencies now say those embezzled monies cannot be traced – FULL STOP!

Drug Lords have comfy rooms in Welikada, continuing their drug peddling by mobile phones.

Former rogues of the then regime hold high ministry secretarial positions with pending fraud cases still on file in Courts against them. So much for Yahapalanaya! Last week the Chairman of a State Corporation was kicked out because he dared to make his voice heard about fraud and irregularities in a coal tender bid in which the lowest tenders were thrown out.

Maithri Gunaratne, former Chairman of the Lanka Coal (Pvt.) Ltd told this paper last week that "Just a week ago Lanka Coal (PVT) Ltd (LCL) floated the tender to purchase 2.2 million tons of coal for 2017. It was obvious that keeping me in the position would cause a serious effect on their income. So I was sacked.There were serious allegations in connection with the purchase of coal during the Mahinda Rajapaksa Regime. The election manifesto of President Maithripala Sirisena pledged to streamline the purchasing mechanism of the government, especially of coal, to make it more transparent than it had hitherto been. For some reason or the other the President chose me as the Chairman and Minister Champika Ranawaka appointed me to the post. He said it was the President who insisted that he should stay on as the Chairman of LCL. "From the time I started my work, I had to clean the stables. There were no proper regulations or procedures in place for purchasing coal. I adopted a 360° approach in my duties. I had discussions with my staff as well as suppliers. I considered all their comments and feedback to set the procedures right to achieve our organizational objectives. I suggested that we should go for 'pre-bid' meetings, so that it would give an opportunity for suppliers to raise all their concerns before they furnish the bid documents. The recent tender too was processed in the same manner. Eight parties were competing in the tender, out of which four suppliers were rejected by the Technical Evaluation Committee.

Note this now: I wrote a letter to the Treasury to draw attention to the fact that this should be an inclusive tender. I got approval to include two more contenders and increased the number of bidders to six. Tenders should always be open to many. Under normal circumstances the competition tends to bring tender price quotations down.

However, I have observed that there were manipulations to limit the number of bidders. The process needed overhauling. I took drastic action to rectify it".

He was then shown the door!!

Must we ask why Minister Senaratne's statement raises laugh in the real world of dirty politics in this country? What of the murders and disappearances ? What of the illegal land alienation? The villagers of Keppapilavu are being kicked around instead of being given back their own homesteads which have come down to them from earlier generations. This is despite the SLAS sending a report to President Sirisena proposing relocation of the Mullaitive Army Headquarters to an adjoining village!
Can the people have an official list issued by the government, of all the cases of fraud and corruption filed with them and successfully prosecuted in Court, to date? It's a long litany of woes, of injustice and the law being reduced to a plaything of the government, as well as of the former government's insiders lurking within its domain.