Daily News Editorial

A gradual shift

With the Coronavirus pandemic bringing the world to its knees and the economies of the superpowers too in a tailspin, the picture indeed looks extremely bleak for the poor countries depending on the largesse of the major economic powers and indeed the aid agencies for survival. The pandemic has also sent unemployment everywhere to the stratosphere, with, in the US alone, 20 million filing for unemployment benefits.

In such a scenario it is only natural that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has laid emphasis on economic revival. The President in an official statement on Monday emphasized the need for maintaining the economy in an active form even while the restrictions are being gradually dismantled. Addressing a Presidential Task Force on Monday, President Rajapaksa stressed that no room should be left for the emergence of a famine under any circumstances.

It will need a herculean effort on the part if all concerned to rebuild and revive the battered economy while also at the same time taking steps to ease the living conditions of the public. Drug importers are already pressing the Government for a price increase citing the steep depreciation of the rupee against the dollar. This is in addition to the blatant exploitation by unscrupulous elements taking advantage of the restrictions imposed due to the Coronavirus to jack up prices of essential commodities. Now with the virus threat brought to manageable proportions (though still hanging like the Sword of Damocles going by the opinion of health experts) like the President noted, it is time to redirect the focus on the economy and stabilize the fiscal situation.

But from the look of things it is going to be a monumental task albeit not confined to this country alone with most stable economies caught up in the coronavirus too recording minus growth rates. According to the opinion of most financial experts we may even have to start from scratch. This is because all those sectors which contributed to the stability of the economy are today down on their knees. It is difficult to comprehend the tourism sector which was among the first to take a beating, rising from the ashes anytime soon with the stringent travel restrictions already in place.

Gone along with that are the expatriate earnings which formed the major source of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. The export sector is virtually paralysed with the plantation sector, another source of our Forex revenue being almost non-functional. In addition the people have less money to spend with less money circulation in the economy.

Among this lot is the school van and office staff transport services which are going to be hard pressed to make ends meet with the social distancing restrictions currently in effect. The television news on a daily basis focuses on the travails of the labourer and the self-employed. Putting right this bleak picture, no doubt, will be an unenviable task of the Government which today is hampered on many fronts in its bid to protect the lives of the people which no doubt is its foremost responsibility. Hence, it is duty of the all citizens taking this fact into consideration to bear with the present hardships that are forced upon the Government which is going out of its way, even taking unpopular decisions in its mission to open the country for normal life and restore the economy to bring about all round stability. A degree of sacrifice by all concerned therefore will not be asking for too much until we turn the corner.

Restoring Galle Face

Environmentalists, nature lovers and those who enjoy outdoor life, no doubt, would go into raptures at the sight of the ‘new’ Galle Face Green (see our picture on page 2) that had taken on its past pristine verdant quality, decidedly, by the enforced ‘stay at home orders’ to the public, occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic. The global health emergency, no doubt, has brought in its wake sweeping changes in community lifestyles, and, importantly, positive shifts in the environmental balance impacting on the lives of people with a popular school of thought holding that the coronavirus pandemic has allowed Mother Nature to make a comeback while others say that the pandemic has saved more lives than it has killed viz a drastic reduction in air pollution.

The ‘restoration’ of the Galle Face Green, which is an essential ingredient in the ‘Garden City of Asia’ moniker borne by the Colombo City in the days gone by, therefore could not have come at better time when the authorities are laying the accent on a clean, unspoilt environment in the wake of the havoc caused by the Coronavirus. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who took great pains when he was the Defence Secretary to convert Colombo to a “Green City”, it is hoped would take measures to ensure the verdant landscape of the Galle Face Green would remain intact making it a strictly a recreational and leisure park for the ordinary folk.

The Island Editorial

‘Boru’ shows

Politicians make trips to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) when they are badly in need of political mileage. Following the 2015 regime change, newly elected UNF MPs went, in processions with television crews in tow, almost daily, to make complaints against their rivals; their pilgrimages came to an abrupt end when the lid was blown off the Treasury bond scams. A group of former UPFA MPs, who are currently in the SLPP, went to the CIABOC office, on Monday, to inquire about the progress, or lack of it, in the investigations into the complaints of corruption against former UNF ministers. Some of them faulted the anti-graft commission for having given kid glove treatment to the yahapalana politicians.

Those who voted for the SLPP, at the last presidential election, hoping that the bond scammers would not be allowed to get away with their crime, must be disillusioned. The police swing into action when an ordinary person happens to be on the wrong side of the law, but they sadly lack such high octane performance when they are ordered to take action against those who have committed the biggest ever financial crime, in the country. How they acted after obtaining warrants from the Colombo Fort Magistrate, in March, to arrest 12 persons over the controversial Treasury bond auctions is a case in point. CID personnel were shown on television, visiting the residences of the suspects, and returning empty-handed. How they purportedly tried to arrest those suspects reminds us of a popular Avurudu cycling contest, where the slowest rider is adjudged the winner. The police would not have acted in that shameful manner without orders from the powers that be.

When the SLPP grandees called for the arrest of the bond scammers while they were in the Opposition, we argued, in this space, that the culprits would be safe under an SLPP-led government. Some SLPP big guns have been sighted in the exalted company of certain bond racketeers. That they are cut from the same cloth goes without saying.

For our money, the SLPP members who went to the CIABOC office, the other day, claiming to be on a mission to jump-start the legal process against the bond scammers, and then inveighed against that institution were barking up the wrong tree. The less said about the CIABOC, the better; it never takes powerful politicians to court. Its sordid operations came to light when Ranjan Ramanayake’s audio clips got leaked. But, the pugnacious SLPP heavyweights, who staged a political dog and pony show, on Monday, should have taken on their leaders accused of shielding the bond racketeers before blaming others.

The UNP-led UNF government protected a bunch of corrupt ministers who had left the Rajapaksa government and joined the yahapalana camp, a few weeks before the 2015 presidential election. The present dispensation is shielding some Opposition politicians in spite of serious corruption charges against them so as to enlist the latter’s support in the next Parliament.

In 2015, the holier-than-thou yahapalana politicians obtained two popular mandates to bring their corrupt predecessors to justice. Nobody went to jail, and the crusaders against corruption got exposed for various rackets. The SLPP leaders, who came to power, vowing to throw the bond racketeers behind bars, are smooching with the latter. The public has been taken for a right royal ride.

Let the SLPP activists who are lambasting the CIABOC be told to stop putting on boru shows and bring pressure to bear on their beloved leaders to refrain from shielding racketeers. Let them be warned that they run the risk of being kicked out by their bosses; such is the power of the corrupt.

Daily Mirror Editorial

A Green deal for SAARC

Seventeen European nations have pledged to make climate change a part of their economic and social recovery agenda of the coronavirus pandemic. With six European nations making it to the top seven Coronavirus hit countries, Europe certainly is in dire straits. Despite the health crisis, these nations made it a point to insist that the most important theme of the survival of the human civilization – climate change - is included in their recovery plans.

These seventeen nations have pledged to make the EU blueprint which aims to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, to be central to recovery plans.“The focus is presently on fighting the pandemic and its immediate consequences. We should, however, begin to prepare ourselves to rebuild our economy and to introduce the necessary recovery plans to bring renewed, sustainable progress and prosperity back to Europe and its citizens,” says a joint letter by these nations. “While doing so, we must not lose sight of the persisting climate and ecological crisis. Building momentum to fight this battle has to stay high on the political agenda,” it further states. Other than carbon neutrality the greater propagation of farm to fork policy is also part of this climate deal.

With a population of 1.7 billion the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) accounts for 21% of the world population. As regards the Covid-19 damage, the SAARC region is on a better wicket compared to Europe. One wonders as to why the South Asian leaders have so far failed to unite for a common agenda that would make climate change concerns as a part of the recovery.

It’s true that the SAARC certainly is not the most dynamic intergovernmental organisation of regional co-operation. However, at the 16th SAARC conference held in 2010, in the pollution-free capital city of Bhutan, Thimphu the South Asian leaders made an initiative titled “Towards a Green and Happy South Asia”. Unfortunately climate change failed to muster the deserved attention at the summits that followed. This is despite the region being one of the most vulnerable in the world. Shrinking glaciers, flash floods, droughts and heatwaves have come to stay in South Asia. Sri Lanka has already been declared the second vulnerable nation to climate change. It rained continuously for seven months even last year flooding several areas. The 2017 floods here, which killed nearly 250 people, was the worst ever in decades. Due to this change in weather patterns crops failed thus making Sri Lanka vulnerable in food security as never before.

Ours certainly is not the only South Asian nation to face these challenges. Floods wreaked havoc in India and Nepal several times during the past couple of years. Droughts and soaring temperatures too have become a recurring feature. We Sri Lankans were almost baked alive during the months of March and April last year. South Asia certainly cannot afford to sit and wait while the rest of the world is fighting climate change with greater zest and zeal.