The Island Editorial

Y’palana cooks brawl; people starve

16 February 2017

The yahapalana administration is like a soup kitchen where cooks are brawling while the poor are desperately waiting outside to dull the pangs of hunger. The term, ‘national unity government’, is a misnomer. Ministers, representing the two main parties, which have opted for a political marriage of convenience, are at daggers drawn. They clash at the drop of a hat, levelling as they do, very serious allegations against one another. The on-going dispute over corruption at the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) is a case in point. President Maithripala Sirisena’s brother, Dudley, who is a big-time rice miller himself and Minister P. Harrison have sought to pass the blame for the current rice shortage and the attendant high prices to each other.

The only institution that seems to function efficiently under the present government is the FCID (Financial Crimes Investigation Division) tasked with probing Opposition politicians. That is because the constituents of the ruling coalition are all agreed on the need to keep the Joint Opposition at bay.

The yahapalana leaders are struggling to make rice available at reasonable prices because they are aware that shortages of that staple have the potential to bring down governments. The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) has imposed a price ceiling on some varieties of rice, which traders have stopped selling, claiming that they don’t want to incur losses. The challenge before the government is to make paddy and rice available without shifting the onus entirely to retailers. President Sirisena has intervened to tackle the rice crisis and is seen on television issuing orders to ministers and officials. But, the problem persists.

In handling the rice shortage, the government is busy treating symptoms rather than the cause of the disease, which is the market manipulation by the politically backed millers’ Mafia. Why the yahapalana regime has baulked at taking on big-time millers is understandable; some ruling politicians and their kith and kin are among them. If their warehouses in the North Central Province, especially Polonnaruwa, are raided and the paddy stocks hoarded therein released to the market the shortage of rice can be overcome overnight.

Regretfully, one main reason why the public is in this predicament without rice freely available at affordable prices is that corrupt politicians and officials are meddling with the PMB, which has the potential to act as a counterbalance to the powerful Millers’ Mafia. If this vital institution, which the UNP once eviscerated for the benefit of its cronies in the rice business, is revitalised and rid of corruption, it will be able to help stabilise paddy and rice prices.

One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his allies rake the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government over the coals for the current rice shortage. While in power they also chose to steer clear of the Millers’ Mafia, which put paid to their efforts to control rice prices. They, to their credit, revived the PMB, but, sadly, failed to unleash its full potential to bring relief to the public. Huge stocks of rice imported for distribution through Sathosa were sold to mudalalis and even delivered to their warehouses straight from the Colombo Port. The incumbent President Sirisena was the Minister of Agriculture at that time and his sibling Dudley and his kinsman Deputy Minister Siripala Gamlath were involved in the rice trade. The Rajapaksa government did nothing to liberate farmers and consumers from the clutches of the Millers’ Mafia. It only resorted to ad hoc measures such as importing rice. The Joint Opposition cannot fool the public by shedding copious tears for them.

Any strategy to make rice available at reasonable prices should be aimed at taming the Millers’ Mafia and ridding the PMB of political interference and corruption. Mere rhetoric won’t do. It is hoped that the yahapalana pundits who have already urged the public to eat croton and jak leaves won’t recommend grass seeds as a substitute for rice.