Columns

Just last week an interview with the Minister of Higher Education was carried in a local newspaper under the headline “We are marching forward”. That was nice to know. After all Lakshman Kiriella is the Minister of Higher Education and who are we to dispute the claims of such a political worthy. No government worth its salt would appoint a nincompoop to such an important job. That is if it’s worth the salt.

Minister of Higher Education and Highways Lakshman Kiriella

Let us be frank. There have been many occasions in the past, and in the present too, when persons who should never have held a particular portfolio – or any portfolio for that matter – found themselves in ministerial office and enjoying the fruits of others’ labour.

But Kiriella is no such person. He is a double-barrelled minister. Besides setting standards and clearing the path to still higher education, he is also Minister of Highways. Though some point to the incongruity of the two subjects the more philosophically inclined think that this portfolio was put together by a far-thinking leader who wanted Kiriella to build an expressway to take this generation and those to follow on a smooth road to the highest levels in tertiary education.
Those who have the time and energy to dig deep and wide into the past might well find that not all roads lead to utopia. Some roads that were meant to be, never reached their intended destination. Some roads for which money was voted went nowhere beyond the drawing boards. Such instances dot our history of infrastructure development like roads signs along our motorways.

There are those who are less charitable and view this yahapalanaya government – or elements in it – goose stepping round issues spouting threats and intimidations that belie all the rose-tinted promises laid out before the people two years or more ago.

So if we are indeed heading for a glorious future as leading UNPers in this administration that is so clean it needs no laundering, promised us, then this nation must be a rare one that marches backward into the future with great aplomb and characteristic hauteur.

Stay for a moment and think back, if one is prepared to suffer another bout of apoplexy, to what was said over the last two years or more by a bunch of average, avaricious politicians vegetating in the wings for 20 years and praying to multiple deities for a chance to do what they see others doing in the name of the nation.
What a fatigued and disgruntled nation grabbed like a last straw was a fantasy cynically concocted by ambitious politicians who never really thought the people would take them seriously. But even shrewd observers of the national scene could occasionally be gullible when in desperation they believe winds of change are genuinely blowing.

So what did the grandmasters at the chess board promise, among others?
Abolition of the executive presidency.

Repeal the 18th Amendment and reintroduction of the 17th Amendment that established several independent institutions.
Appoint a restricted cabinet in place of the jumbo cabinet
A Government that would be accountable, transparent and not interfering in independent institutions.
Re-establishing the rule of law and independence of the judiciary.

Eliminating waste and financial profligacy.
Bringing to book those who have robbed state assets.
Eliminating corruption and eschewing nepotism, cronyism and family rule.

These are but a few of the pledges held out to a nation desperate for change and fair treatment for all segments of society not just for Colombo’s moneyed-elite and the metropolitan nouveau riche engaged in dubious business often hand-in- glove with politicians of few scruples.

Some of those who voted for the two main parties now in power sincerely believed that they would see clean government and lawmakers of moral rectitude. Instead what the nation is witnessing is the jettisoning of many of those pledges having first hoodwinked the people by introducing some legislation in the early days.
Hardly had the new president assumed office and a prime minister anointed according to a previous arrangement when the first scandals hit the headlines. The treasury bond transaction which those involved probably thought would go unnoticed in the euphoria of the political change and the establishment of government, did not go according to plan particularly because the perpetrators continued to monkey with the system.

Within days the people had been betrayed and the numerous attempts made to cover up the dubious deals and sweep the whole thing under the carpet failed only because the alert saw the attempts for what they were. Now there is a chance that the truth will out and those involved will pay for this.

Even until the President appointed a commission to probe the issue the UNP was fighting a rearguard action to save its soiled skin. A few days ago Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake launched a blistering attack in parliament on the Auditor-General because he presented a copy of a report sought by Karunanayake to the COPE chairman and for seeking information from the Central Bank which it refused to divulge.

It is a pity that colleague Kiriella’s desire to spread higher education far and wide does not seem to include the cabinet. Karunanayake suffers from delusions of adequacy. Had he spent some time studying and understanding the role and powers of the Auditor General he might have spared parliament and the public a display of ignorance.

Had the Finance Minister acquainted himself with Monetary Law Act as he should, he would know what Section 43 (1) so clearly sets out and that the Governor of the Central Bank and its officials have no right to deny him access to and right to examine accounts, all books and documents etc, etc.

Moreover the AG’s independence is guaranteed by the Constitution – sec 154 – and is answerable to parliament and no other. The 19th Amendment strengthens his position which is obviously awkward for those in the government trying to undermine him. It would not be surprising if the same persons try to diminish his role and responsibilities in the forthcoming National Audit Bill because the AG is becoming an embarrassment.

Take the activities of another from the old boys club who is in charge of development strategies and internal trade. While Prime Minister Wickremesinghe boasts of how foreign investments will flow into the country like water over Niagara Falls, the recent investments touted included a Volkswagen factory without Volkswagen and a tyre factory in Horana which has already run into controversy not only because of the unusually liberal terms offered to the investor who himself is a person who has been much in the news.

Then there is much travelled foreign minister who assiduously cultivated middling diplomats of the Obama government so much so that some expected an altar to be built to Nisha Biswal in the courtyard of the foreign ministry. That would allow obeisance to be paid to this diplomatic middle-ranker before the minister enters the building on those occasions he is visible in Sri Lanka.

It now seems that President Trump has thrown the whole ruddy lot Susan Powers included into some Washington trash can. Poor Samaraweera has to start poojas once again. But he would not mind. Travel broadens the mind, what there is of it.

Talking of nepotism and cronyism this newspaper published a list of names of persons appointed to our missions abroad. Has the promised ratio of 70% career officers and 30% political appointees been maintained or has Samaraweera’s “gannang” failed him?

I read a news story recently – true or not I do not know – that a complaint has been lodged at the Cinnamon Gardens Police station against some prefects of Royal College for trying to chastise a bunch of students by making them eat grass.

Seeing what their elder alumni have done to the nation in just two years, perhaps the prefects felt with sufficient cause that they should prepare the students early in life for a political career in case some of the grass-eaters followed their illustrious seniors into the cabinet.

Since a substantial number of the current crop of MPs is drawn from the same college close to the police station, it might not be a bad idea after all. Personally I would commend the prefects for their prescience. Let them eat and depart.