Thoughts from London

Now, the mother of all lift offs
So, how very considerate of Minister Mangala Samaraweera. He goes and installs a lift at his official residence. In case you think all he wants to do is go up and down and down and up that would be indeed unfair by the minister who is terribly scrupulous about spending public money for private purposes.

Actually this lift costs less than Rs 3 million. He did not say how much less when he spoke to a Sunday newspaper on this spiritually uplifting subject though the lift itself is for physical upliftment or down loading, depending on which way one is headed.

If the minister wanted to he could have bought a much more expensive lift. After all the money was not coming out of his pocket, deep though that may be. There is always the Ports Authority, so generous with state funds that it doles it out like the standardised meals to harbour labour.
Didn’t we read somewhere that the munificence of the Ports Authority was partly responsible for the first official (but not for long though) biography of President CBK written by somebody called Graham Wilson whose dashing writing dashed the hopes of benefactors such as Mangala Samaraweera who tried to uplift CBK’s global stature.

Having failed to raise the image of his president, Samaraweera is trying to lift his mother one storey in his official residence at Stanmore Crescent.
His dear mother, bless her dear heart, is a gracious lady and deserves filial endearment and all consideration as any mother should.

But why such pecuniary stinginess, pray? Why spend a mere Rs 3 million of public money on making life easier for his mother when the Ports Authority was said to have splurged four million rupees on that useless and ill-fated CBK biography. Not only has the minister put his president ahead of his mother but even boasts about buying a cheap lift.

Let minister Samaraweera characterise himself in his words: “It was a Korean lift and cost less than three million rupees. It was chosen through a tender process and was the cheapest of the three models.”
So it was the cheapest and not necessarily the best. That is rather insulting to the Koreans and the Korean Ambassador should take note never to invite Samaraweera to his National Day reception at Horton Place hereafter for his implied deprecation of Korean technology.

Strange things do happen. Now they not only call for tenders but even select the lowest tenderer. This is what is so absorbing about the minister. Being no tender bender and a stickler for procedure (sometimes known to the bureaucracy as ARs and FRs) he no doubt followed this horrible practice when he refurbished his office at an enormous cost to the taxpayer during a previous incarnation as telecommunications minister.

Surely he called for tenders when he redecorated his office more recently at the Ports Authority? Somewhere it was said that his Ports Authority office has or will have, chairs all the way from cherry blossom land. Doubtless they too were bought on tender. Wonder what happened to those celebrated Moratuwa furniture manufacturers. Perhaps they were so tangled up in bureaucratic red tape or banished to political purgatory that not even the Moratuwa maestro Tyronne Fernando could come to their aid.

All these redecorations are said to have cost many, many millions more than his mother’s lift — that too installed after wasting precious time on tenders. Some might say that what the good lady deserves is loving tenderness not tenders.

That would be somewhat unfair by the honourable minister. Well so are they all, all honourable ministers, to adapt the words of Mark Antony. But then if one were to adapt George Orwell’s words, one could say some were more honourable than others, though personally I would keep mum on that.

Come now, don’t knock the poor minister. All this up and down business is not only for his dear mother though some sensationalist media would want us to believe that Mr Samaraweera is spending public money on Mrs Samaraweera — I mean his mother of course, for Mangala S does not have a spouse — as far as I know, that is. But then I’m open to correction.

See how very thoughtful of the chap. Talking of the lift he said “It’s wasn’t put there only for mother….it’s for my mother and all other mothers after mine.” Even if he’s got his grammar wrong he’s got his priorities right.
Now you see what a far seeing and considerate chap this Samaraweera is. It must be one enormous lift if all mothers after his could take a ride from there to eternity. And if he got it at Rs 3 million, Samaraweera really got a bargain. It would need the combined brains of a Central Banker and a dope dealer with a JP-ship to work out the per capita cost of the lift rides for all mothers once they manage to squeeze their collective anatomies into its confined space.

Whatever it is, this must be the mother of all lifts, not to mention the lift for all mothers. While the Koreans have got a lift off, their shoulders I mean, the silly British are squabbling over an official government car and driver being given to Cherie Blair, the prime minister’s wife. The bullet proof Vauxhall Omega is said to cost taxpayers £50,000 a year. A Cabinet spokesman was quoted in a newspaper last Sunday as saying that “Prime Minister’s spouses have not previously had (official) cars, but it’s a recent change we have made in the light of a security review.”

If these British chaps ever turn up in Sri Lanka they would soon learn how ministers, their deputies and spouses and many MPs spend taxpayers money on perks and some not so perky things as though they were minting money at home.

The British have a thing or two to learn about real democracy, asking silly questions about the prime minister’s wife using an official car to go shopping. They should see the number of official cars outside our big schools, super markets, shopping malls and even nightclubs where ministerial progeny flex their muscles and their bodyguards their missiles.
Mangala in his innocence only had a lift installed and didn’t even use his credit card for it, and these media cynics start cutting him to ribbons.
Talking of cutting ribbons, wasn’t Mangala Innocence the name under which he presented himself to the fashion world when he fancied himself a budding Pierre Cardin, Gucci or Armani?

Many years ago I think I remember seeing a photograph of Mangala in what one supposed was an outfit created by him — a sarong that seemed to have been cut in half. Those were the days when Mangala was innocence itself. Having now grown into full flowering he does nothing by half.

Meanwhile in the same camp — or so I think — Anura Bandaranaike is complaining to his presidential sister that somebody is trying to deprive him of the premiership so graciously bestowed on him by the SLFP. He says Nirmala Kotelawala, a deputy minister he has never seen or talked to has also written a nasty letter.

Well, when the government consists only of ministers and deputies scant wonder Anura does not known the fellow. This Kotelawala chap’s photograph is hardly likely to make the Los Angeles Times or San Francisco Chronicle. But if Anura stays more at home than abroad, why he might eventually run into the fellow. Who knows where.

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