Ceylon Today Editorial

Garbage Politics

19 April 2017

Deaths due to the 'Aluth Avurudu' tragedy caused by the collapse of the man-made 'Meethotamulla garbage mountain' as at Monday stood at 30, while 11 were listed as missing. (See this newspaper's yesterday's edition)
Reports as at yesterday said that the death toll had risen to 31.

The 'Meethotamulla garbage mountain's construction work' had its origins during the iron fist regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, when his all powerful brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Gota) 'took upon himself' the additional portfolio of Urban Development Ministry Secretary, while continuing to hold the Defence Ministry Secretary portfolio 'gifted' to him, no sooner brother Mahinda was elected to power in November 2005.

In addition to being Defence Minister, brother Mahinda was also the Minister of Urban Development, Ports and Highways. It was all in the family!
Colombo garbage which was previously dumped at Bloemendhal Road, under the aegis of Gota's Urban Development Authority (UDA) and brother Mahinda's Ministry, was then shifted to Meethotamulla, dumping some 800-850 metric tonnes (mts) of garbage generated from Colombo, to this suburb, Meethotamulla, since 2009.

In fairness to Gota and Mahinda, previously, there was no 'systematic method' to dispose of Colombo's garbage. It was a common site to see piles of garbage collected in various parts of the city. But after Gota also took over the Urban Development Ministry Secretaryship, the 'Brothers Grimm', set about the cleansing of Colombo, of its garbage, in style. As a result, one now doesn't find any garbage dumps in Colombo, a plus point for, cleanliness, health and tourism promotion. Meanwhile, Gota even before he was appointed Urban Development Ministry Secretary in 2011, was, anyway Colombo's de facto 'garbage supervisor' during brother Mahinda's regime.

For instance, in a report filed by 'adaderana.lk' on 9 August, 2010; when Gota was holding the post of only Defence Ministry Secretary, that news report said, 'The Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has warned the contractors responsible for cleaning the Colombo City, following complaints received that they are not performing their jobs adequately, Govt. Information Dept said...

...He made it clear to them that it was they who have undertaken the contracts from the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), and it is up to them to provide the necessary facilities, as they are not doing the job for free. He has also pointed out that he executed the war in the North and the East with all sorts of shortcomings, but finally won it. He has also made it clear that if the contractors do not perform their services as expected, their services will be terminated. The Defence Secretary has also warned CMC engineers for failing to clean a particular canal...'

Nonetheless, the tragedy is that at least Colombo has no scientific method of disposing of its garbage or municipal waste. This problem may not be limited only to Colombo. This horrendous shortcoming also engulfs the area coming under the Dehiwela-Mt. Lavinia Municipality. Garbage from this area is dumped in the Attidiya marshes as a disposal mechanism, in as much as garbage from Colombo, prior to the Meethotamulla tragedy, was dumped in that area.
There is no science behind garbage disposal in Sri Lanka. Only ad hoc solutions leading to tragedies, not just 'Meethotamulla', but, probably the recurrence of dengue epidemics as well, which have been plaguing the island since the late 1990s.
During the latter part of the UNP regime of December 1988 to August 1994, steps, in a scientific way, was adopted to dispose of Colombo's garbage with World Bank aid.

A landfill was identified in the Ja-Ela-Wattala area to dispose of this garbage, at that time estimated at 700 mts. That period coincided with the election years of that era, beginning with the 1993 Provincial Council elections and culminating with the parliamentary elections of August 1994.

The then opposition was the SLFP-led PA coalition of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. The PA is the predecessor of the present UPFA coalition. Their protests against this scientific landfill led by the likes of the then Gampaha District SLFP MP, firebrand Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, proved successful. The Ja-Ela-Wattala area comes under Gampaha.

The UNP crumpled under this 'scientific' political onslaught, by abandoning its construction, thereby paving the way for the creation of State sanctioned unscientific garbage disposal methodologies such as 'Bloemendhal', 'Meethotamulla' and the 'Attidiya Marshes', and, probably the beginning of the recurrence of epidemics such as dengue, and now, other manmade disasters such as 'Meethotamulla', which, at one swipe, has taken the lives of at least 31 people.

Who cares, it's the poor who suffer and die. This is Sri Lanka's tragedy for the past 59 years, beginning with S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike's 'Sinhala-Only' policy of 1956 and most recently, the Meethotamulla Aluth Avurudu tragedy.
Unless, bold, but politically unpalatable decisions are taken by governments, these vicious cycles of tragedies, of one form or another, snuffing poor, innocent lives, will be the norm and not the exception, perhaps paving the way for more bloody revolutions and upheavals, with Sri Lanka ending up probably as another 'Sudan' or 'Somalia'.

Daily News Editorial

A misdirected boo

19 April 2017

Much play was given by sections of the media to the incident where Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayaka was booed by angry mobs when he visited the scene of the Meetotamulla tragedy. Certain Television channels went out of their way to focus on this matter as if the collapse of the garbage mountain were all Minister Ratnayaka’s fault. Of course emotions ran high in the aftermath of the tragedy and the air was charged with high tension when the Minister accompanied by the Police and Army chiefs visited the scene.

It is not just Ratnayaka. All politicians, including Minister Fowzie and MP Marikkar, who visited the scene, were at the receiving end of the people’s anger. These politicians of course have their vote base in Colombo. But not Minister Ratnayaka, and thus, he had the least necessity of visiting the scene. It is natural that the wrath of the victims were directed at the politicians to whom the public have entrusted their safety and well being. It is unfortunate, though, that Minister Ratnayaka had to bear the brunt of the seething anger of the Meetotamulla victims. As the Minister dealing with the subject of Law and Order Ratnayaka need not have stuck his neck out and venture out into the Lions’ Den, so to speak, when the responsibility lay elsewhere. If he decided to do so it would have been out of sheer concern for the plight of the people and to also ensure that there was no breach of the law and order, as often happens following such incidents.

Besides, the Minister’s visit cannot be an exercise in becoming popular. He had no political stake in visiting the scene of the tragedy, with Meetotamulla, situated in the Kolonnawa electorate, far removed from Deniyaya, in the deep south, the Minister’s home base. His visit certainly was not with an eye on the vote, or the manapey, unlike a certain politician, who, during a flood, close to election day, distributed lunch packets with his name and manapey number prominently displayed on the buth packet. Minister Ratnayaka should therefore be commended for braving the odds and visiting the victims while those who are culpable were nowhere near the scene.

Those media institutions who went to town about the Minister being booed failed to record the ‘No Show’ by any of the members of the Joint Opposition save Dinesh Gunawardena. One would have expected the political savvy Mahinda Rajapaksa to be the first on the scene at such instances, as the public knows only too well. Conspicuous also by their absence were JO stalwarts Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila, champions of the down trodden and with their vote base in the Colombo district. Perhaps they are only too well aware that the Meetotamulla garbage mountain was not the creation of Yahapalanaya but was in existence for nearly two decades and that they too would have been at the receiving end of the angry mobs for gross neglect on their part. What was former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who received much accolades for beautifying the Colombo city, doing, permitting this massive eyesore to remain without using the considerable resources at his disposal, including the army, to get rid of it?

Be that as it may, it behoves all parties to set aside all political differences and unite in this dark hour to alleviate the sufferings of the Meetotamulla vicitms. The blame game should stop and work started immediately to find a solution to the ever worsening garbage problem. With the Meetotamulla incident there is now bound to be stiff resistance by the public to shift garbage to other areas as was witnessed recently in Ja-ela. What is needed is a long term solution, such as recycling of the garbage for power generation, a project that was often bandied about by successive governments to no avail. It is hoped that the Japanese technical team due to arrive in the country in the aftermath of the Meetotamulla tragedy would offer a permanent solution to the garbage problem. The way things stand the problem could only get further aggravated with rapid urbanization and the resultant congestion (there is a daily floating population of nearly one million in the Colombo city). Presently, local government bodies in many areas such as Wattala and Ja-ela which are highly urbanized and populous have run out of land areas to dump garbage, with the result that mini garbage mountains are seen piled up on roadsides. The problem could also invite disease and pestilence. Adding to the woes is the decision by the UDA not to permit its lands for garbage dumping.

President Maithripala Sirisena, as the Minister of Environment should take the lead and get things moving -and moving fast- before the problem gets out of hand and the country being reduced to one big stinking mess. Funds should not be made an obstacle towards a long term solution to the garbage problem. Japan has already promised help. There will be others too who could be persuaded to provide their inputs.

The Island Editorial

Rotting garbage and stinking politics

19 April 2017

 

The death toll from the Meethotamulla disaster continues to rise. About 30 bodies had been recovered at the time of going to press. Experts have warned that the garbage dump may collapse again in the event of heavy rains. They have called for evacuating many more people. Their warning must be heeded if another disaster in quick succession is to be averted.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa would have us believe that his administration was about to launch a project to rid Meethotamulla of rotting garbage when it was dislodged in 2015. He seems to be blaming the people who defeated his administration, for the disaster! His government was in power long enough to solve the garbage problem. After all, it crushed terrorism in less than three years and built two expressways. While keeping urban areas clean by shifting municipal waste elsewhere it unveiled a grand plan to transport the Meethotamulla garbage all the way to Puttalam and dump it into deep pits left by the overexploitation of limestone for cement production. The proposed solution would have proved to be as bad as the problem! Unless the Rajapaksa government had been defeated it would have polluted another part of the country.

Having brutally crushed a protest against groundwater pollution in Rathupaswala, the Rajapaksa regime may have felt confident that it would be able to overcome resistance to its garbage project in Puttalam in a similar manner. You don’t need a government to remove garbage from one place and dump it elsewhere, do you? That is what some irresponsible members of the public have been doing all these years!

Solving the Meethotamulla waste issue was not high on the development agenda of the Rajapaksa government. Instead, that administration was preoccupied with mega projects to impress the public and get their votes in return. True, some of its infrastructure development projects have stood the country in good stead, but the fact remains that public funds were wasted on some Ozymandian schemes to boost the egos of the then rulers. If the Rajapaksa government had cared to prioritise the country’s development needs, rationalise its expenditure and curtail waste, enough waste recycling plants could have been put up and, perhaps, people would not have been buried alive in garbage at Meethotamulla.

The less said about the incumbent administration the better! Its leaders are apparently capable of only one thing—talking. It has undertaken to create a Megapolis though it cannot even ensure that the roads in the Colombo suburbs are properly lit. One lane of the Southern Expressway has remained closed near Kokmaduwa due to a minor earth slip which occurred in October, 2015. How long this government will take to build a new highway is the question. As for the Meethotamulla garbage dump, it only sought to pacify irate residents of the area by making various promises instead of finding a viable solution.

The government is desperately seeking foreign investment. But, will any foreigner in his or her proper senses ever want to invest his or her hard earned money in a country, which is not capable of managing even its garbage?

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition has been in power for nearly two and a half years and it had enough time to launch a project to tackle the garbage issue. It is only natural that the resentment of the Meethotamulla people finds expression in booing and cursing whenever government ministers and high ranking police and military officers visit the disaster site.

Surprisingly, the Meethotamulla tragedy has not jolted the government into calling an emergency session of Parliament to discuss how to solve the problem once and for all. Both the SLFP and the UNP must stop playing dirty politics with the garbage dump disaster and get together to clean up the mess they have created over the last three decades or so. Their hypocrisy emanates a far worse stench than the rain-soaked, rotting garbage at Meethotamulla.