Letters
View(s):Government’s challenge: Turning campaign promises into policy
Democracy, the rule of law, corruption, wastage and politicisation of government institutions were some of the main campaign issues at the Presidential and Parliamentary elections last year.
The Government now faces the challenge of turning its promises into policies. Obviously the expectations of the people are high. They want the Government to act fast. They are not prepared to forget the promises made to them.
The Government needs to get its priorities straight. The Priorities Setting Exercise, as it was known, soon bloated far beyond expectations, eating up months and thousand of man hours, committees and reports. But the big picture remains obscure. Task forces, commissions, committees, advisory councils have been set up at public expense, but very little has come out of them.
The Government’s action in withdrawing its policy decisions after trying to implement them is not a good sign. This was the case with the budget proposals and the VAT increase. It may have been done for good reasons; yet, it creates far more complex situations than easing them.
The development and implementation of policies draw upon resources which remain in chronically short supply. Analytical capacity, legislative drafting, financial resources, ministerial time, cabinet time, parliamentary time, competent programme management and always, “Consultation” simply aggravate such constraints.
On the other hand, the Government cannot remove the onus on the bureaucracy. It is hard to move forward without it. Of course in a public sector deeply rooted in inefficiency and highly resistant to change, it is an enduring challenge to deliver.
Democratic constitutions rightly focused on legitimacy, rather than efficiency. It is not easy to revolutionise this setting. Yet, the Government seems not to have grasped these hard realities. It may be possible to ignore them for a time, but all this comes home to roost. The Government must attempt to mitigate these constraints by understanding the setting.
Good intentions alone are not enough. The people expect the Government to deliver. Already the calls to account for the deficit between words and deeds have begun in earnest. The Government needs to realise that more and better ideas will evolve into more and better policies and programmes.
All these will work for only so long before the people want to see promises turn into policies and programmes that are implemented for their benefit. The question is whether this opportunity is going to be wasted or gainfully used by our leaders.
Raja Wickramasinghe
Via email
Law’s delays: Some useful suggestions
This refers to the Sunday Times’ August 7 lead story headlined ‘Law’s Delays: AG’s Department to be restructured’.
It is a fact that legal proceedings are horrendously delayed owing to a pile up of cases in the Attorney General’s Department. This is only one aspect of a massive problem which has resulted in litigants helplessly driven from “pillar to post” owing to our legal system being biased in favour of the legal fraternity at the expense of both plaintiffs and respondents.
A myriad of reasons could be attributed to this regrettable state of affairs. Here are some of them:
Cases are postponed on flimsy grounds such as ‘lawyer sick’, ‘lawyer unprepared’ and ‘lawyer unable to attend courts for personal reasons’. At times, the judge is absent for whatever reason and hence all cases that were scheduled to be heard by him/her are postponed. In all such situations the litigants have no alternative but to pay the fees.
These delays are also applicable to witnesses who had presented themselves on receiving summons wasting their time and funds on travel expenses and sundry items.
This problem could be solved to some extent, if laws are enacted to make lawyers to charge fees on a case by case basis rather than on a daily basis. If this happens, lawyers will make valiant efforts to ensure that the hearing of cases is expedited.
In almost all professional fields, career advancement is by passing “in house” efficiency exams or by graduating in specialist fields relevant to their profession.
As far as the judiciary is concerned there are no such barriers. Judges are pushed up their career ladder, and sometimes incorrect judgments are given. To deal with this situation, we need to introduce a system where each time a judge gives an incorrect verdict, it is recorded in his/her personal file, which should be examined prior to any promotions.
It is sad that when civil disputes occur, sometimes the aggrieved parties resort to violence or thuggery to sort out their problems because they feel obtaining results by litigation is virtually a “bottomless well”.
Thus law’s delays are not only because of systems prevalent in the Attorney General’s Department, the Legal Draftsman’s Department and the Government Analyst’s Departments, but also because of the practices of members of official and unofficial Bars.
A.B. Sosa
Via email
Don’t let phones take your lives away
Are mobile phones becoming the curse of the human race? This is the big question facing people here and everywhere on planet earth.
Though considered as the most useful electronic device ever to reach the hands of people of all walks of life, it has also pushed us to the brink of disaster.
Often we see drivers using mobile phones while driving on busy roads. Having observed pedestrians on their phones with no awareness of their surroundings, it is scary to think of what could happen when a driver’s attention is diverted.
Some time ago, while travelling by a private bus from Jaffna to Colombo by night, I was seated right behind the driver and I saw the driver using a phone while driving at breakneck speed. Worst of all he pulled out another phone and was involved in a heated argument at the same time, using his elbows to steer the wheel – unbelievable but true. None of the passengers objected to this dangerous behaviour.
There are stories of people losing their lives on railway tracks, roads and even while climbing trees because of the wrongful usage of phones. We see schoolchildren and office workers fiddling with their smartphones while travelling or at home with no concern of what’s happening around them.
A whole generation will wake up one day and wonder where their lives went. Answer – you left them in your smartphones!
Kanagar Raveendiran
Ratmalana
Pay first then shoot: Photography students stunned by park policy
We are a set of amateur photographers who are members of the Photographic Society of Sri Lanka. As part of our project work, we had to photograph scenic places in Colombo and one of the places we chose was the Viharamahadevi Park. While we were going about our task, civil defence force personnel stopped us and said we could take pictures only if permission was obtained from relevant CMC officials.
We were also told that there was a payment involved and the money had to be paid on a weekday to a CMC Office at Ward Place. This is a typical case of bureaucratic red tape causing inconvenience to the public.
Why cannot the authorities display a board with a sign “No photographs without permission” and inform visitors to the park that photographs can be taken only upon a payment? Should not they set up a desk in the park?
With this type of shortsighted approach, how can we promote the beauty of our motherland?
Over to you Mr. Mayor.
Rasika Ranatunga
Via e mail
Foreign Secretary: Kudos from the East
The Islamic Religious Education Mission is happy to note the appointment of Esala Weerakoon as secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Our mission which is based in Akkaraipattu wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera thanking them for appointing a genuine and hardworking officer known for his honesty and integrity as the top diplomat of the country.
We noted with gratitude that Mr. Weerakoon has worked hard towards building national unity and communal harmony between the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people, especially in the East. We can vouch for this.
We also pointed out that Mr. Weerakoon, a seasoned diplomat with long years of experience, would not dance to the tune of politicians in power.
The appointment of Mr. Weerakoon, who has served as high commissioner to India and ambassador to Norway in addition to postings in our missions in several world capitals, serves to strengthen good governance in the country.
M.I. Abul Hasan
Akkaraipattu
Electronic media can play vital role in spreading the old truism, “prevention is better than cure”
The old adage that “prevention is better than cure” , remains a truism that has transcended time and is the cornerstone of most health care programmes. Patients still arrive late to hospital and are often unaware of the significance of some common symptoms that foretell a catastrophic health event that is in the making. Many, if not most are unaware how such adverse events can now, with current medical technology and medication be thwarted or held at bay. This can be achieved by an awareness of such symptoms and the knowledge of what they connote. An enlightened positive attitude adopted on the part of the patient so afflicted or his relations, would be a boon to those medics who man the emergency units in our hospitals.
With the increasing number of those in the older age groups, they must accept the reality that the arteries of their body, which have carried blood under pressure through them with each heart beat since they were born- like a road overused- will show signs of wear and tear. We were never designed to live this long! Therefore the arteries develop a disease, almost universally, called atherosclerosis.
With time it tends to gradually cause them to get narrow and eventually blocked. Sometimes a diseased portion of the arterial lining, affected by this wear and tear disease, comes off, travels downstream with the flow and abruptly blocks its lumen at a narrower point.
Certain individuals are at greater risk of getting this wear and tear disease more floridly and at a younger age. They are those who have diabetes, blood pressure, increased cholesterol in their blood and those who smoke. They must be especially vigilant. Arteries that are so narrowed or abruptly obstructed, when they supply vital organs like the heart and brain, make these organs very vulnerable to damage and in consequence affect their function with often grave results such as heart-attacks and strokes.
Early features of compromised flow is when they, the arteries, have got so narrow that it jeopardises the blood supply to the organs, leading to a group of specific and well described symptoms. It is vital that an awareness of such symptoms gradually seeps into the public “psyche”. It is only then that we could get the best use from the advanced health care that has been made available both in the public and private sector health care institutions.
The electronic media, in most economically and socially advanced countries, take it as their social responsibility to air these health education titbits at prime time. Such is not the case in this country. I was ruminating as to how we can persuade, or get sponsorship for the display of such warnings by the electronic media, when my friend Dr. A.M.L.Beligaswatte, the former Director General of Health Services, came up with this insightful idea to get the Insurance companies to do so. For them it is a win- win situation. They would benefit by having less illness among their clients. I hope one of them takes this idea on board . Any Cardiologist and Neurologist will give them what needs to be highlighted.
We need to get these patients on time to the emergency care units without compromising their health any further. In light of this need, I , as a conscientious doctor who is very interested in helping to take our health care to the next level, am ever grateful to Minister Dr. Harsha de Silva for having the excellent idea to recommend to the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to moot this when the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked what help we need. I am sure most members of the medical profession and the public are very grateful.
Dr. Channa Ratnatunga
Kandy
Re-settlement of owners of old flat schemes: Consent is the key
High-rise living in the city was a subject of a recent newspaper article, where Moratuwa University experts had expressed their views on the proliferation of high-rise buildings in the capital city.
With the mushrooming of skyscrapers in a haphazard manner, there is a need for operative laws to be updated in keeping with the best health and environmental practices and stringent criteria adopted in other countries.
In that same article, the details given of a building due for completion in 2020 with 55 storeys for 133 apartments concerned me as a flat-dweller. In an effort to re-develop the Bambalapitiya Flat Scheme, the Condominium Management Authority (CMA) seeks to re-settle 310 families in one tower of around 50 storeys, in an extent of one acre. The present Scheme has 16 buildings spread over 8 acres of land.
CMA is sparing no pains to convince the residents that the re-location plan is a boon to flat-owners in which exercise a ridiculous claim made is that the Management Corporations have consented to this new re-location, when that authority has still to establish Management Corporations in due form.
In Court of Appeal application number 511/10, where I was a co-petitioner, CMA along with the Attorney General entered into a settlement on June 20, 2012 that action would be taken for effective setting up of Management Corporations along with action to attend to all matters of repair and maintenance. From 2012 to end of 2014 action was taken to refurbish and paint most government flat schemes in the city except for this scheme that has pride of place over other later ones.
It is a requirement in the Apartment Ownership law that any demolition of a condominium building must be with the unanimous consent of the owners of such building. Contrary to such need, an office note of a Conference attended by 17 residents in November 2014 is now being interpreted as consent by all owners of the scheme. We were informed by a key official at a meeting on April 2 that if Gotabaya Rajapaksa held reins of office, there would occur a clean sweep, protest or no protest, and that the present Government acted with very liberal outlook.
If, as alleged, the Rajapaksa administration took recourse to expediency over individual liberty, officials of the new government owe a duty to the new regime in pointing out deficiency in procedure, recommending such necessary corrective action. When the new authorities virtually gallop rough-shod, in disregard of the law as well as the conditions in the deeds of dispossession, the hapless flat dweller may aptly reiterate that the voice is that of Jacob but the hands are of Esau.
W.E. Jayawardena
Bambalapitiya Flats
Monks are supposed to be role models to lay people
In recent times there has been much criticism of the conduct of some of the members of the Maha Sangha. Earlier, these unfortunate incidents were mainly reported in the newspapers. Today they are shown on television with people recording such conduct on their cell phones. Pictures shown on the screen have a more telling effect than newspaper items.
Bhikkhus are expected under their Vinaya (discipline) rules to be always calm and collected in their conduct, both physical and vocal. They are expected to walk slowly and mindfully all the time and a monk walking in such a manner is an inspiration to laymen to lead a noble life and develop a sense of equanimity (Upekkha) or balance of mind in facing the vicissitudes of life, the pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
Often we see bhikkhus walking throwing their body and arms around and even gesturing to emphasise their arguments. In one recent incident, a monk leading a demonstration was seen on television grappling with police officers. It should be appreciated by both monks and laymen that police officers are expected to enforce law and order and most often demonstrations on public highways are permitted up to a considerable extent as it should be in a democratic country. More so the monks who are expected to be role models for laymen.
Actually, monks should not be involved in public demonstrations at all. They could express their views, their opposition or support for certain actions through the media. When they become part of a demonstration, it is difficult for them to be calm and collected. Therefore, it is best for the monks to keep away from such activity altogether. Sometimes in such situations their anger and hatred are reflected on their faces whereas it is the noble qualities of Brahma Viharana, the art of noble living, Metta, Karuna, Mudita and Upekkha that should be visible in monks in their bodily actions.
Of course, there are a large number of monks who live according to the Vinaya. They do not get angry and maintain a sense of balance in difficult situations. In this connection, past monks of the calibre of Ven. Gnanatiloka, Ven. Narada and Ven. Madihe Pannaseeha Theras come to mind.
In these circumstances the courageous action of a Magistrate who was bold enough to reprimand a monk for his unacceptable conduct in Court should be commended.
I made these comments not to ridicule certain monks but with the sincere wish to encourage their reformation under the guidance and example of senior monks who live the noble life.
May all beings be well and happy!
Rajah Kuruppu
Colombo
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