Letters to the Editor
View(s):These grandiose foolhardy projects are definitely not for the people
Colombo’s fast changing skyline
I was shocked to read in the print media of the Cabinet approving US $300 million towards a project to roll back the sea from Kollupitiya to Dehiwela and create a luxury beach resort.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has described such public-private partnerships as ventures in which “the public shoulders all the risk and the private walks off with the profits.” We have experienced several such skewed public-private partnerships: the CEB, Sri Lankan Airlines, and the suspended Hyatt hotel, come immediately to mind. We have also discovered recently the way, under both the previous and current regimes, collusion between some Central Bank officials and private rogue traders has robbed the public of billions of rupees.
What are the costs that the residents of Colombo will bear with this latest grandiose project?
(1) The sea is what keeps temperatures in Colombo relatively mild compared with many other South Asian cities. Rolling back the sea 100 metres and erecting structures along the beach front will block the sea breeze and rise with dire consequences for health (e.g. greater incidence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue).
(2) The therapeutic value of gazing out to sea, especially for the elderly and infirm, cannot be assigned a financial price. It is what makes life in a seaside or lakeside city more pleasant than a landlocked city. Witness the number of people who flock to Galle Face Green on a weekend or sit on the rocks along the Marine Drive to enjoy the sight of waves crashing on the shore or a sunset. On a Sunday some even bring their fishing poles to catch their Sunday lunch. Are these simple pleasures of “ordinary” folk to be sacrificed in order to court rich foreigners and rich locals who can find plenty of beaches elsewhere?
In the meantime, Colombo is quickly turning into a “ghost city”, with low-occupancy luxury hotels and empty condominiums arising everywhere.
(3) The sea and beaches around the island are part of the “commons” for all inhabitants of Sri Lankan to enjoy. Yet private hotel developers are in the habit of cordoning off sections of our beaches and excluding the general public from walking on them or swimming. It seems that wealthy foreigners and the Sri Lankan upper-middle-class are taking over the “commons”. The same will be true for the proposed luxury resort in Colombo.
We are not like Singapore, a tiny city-state, which has had a desperate need to reclaim land from the sea. And, unlike Singapore, the authorities are indifferent to the real developmental needs in the city. For instance, the roads are badly maintained and traffic lights (including pedestrian lights) are often not functioning. Colombo residents cannot use the Marine Drive at night because its streetlights are usually switched off; and heaps of garbage lie strewn for days alongside the railway tracks. Do we really need a state-of-the art Aquarium (as proposed in the beach resort project) more than proper roads, functioning traffic lights and better housing for the large number of urban poor?
Is this the kind of lopsided “development” that the Government is promoting: diverting funds that should be used to better the living conditions of people (here and in other provinces) to meaningless luxury projects in Colombo?
When I consulted the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), I was told that the CMC was powerless to do anything about this as it is the UDA that makes the decisions about what structures are permitted in the city, the RDA is responsible for the Marine Drive road and lighting, and the Megapolis Ministry is behind the proposed luxury beach resort.
This is indeed a strange state of affairs. We, the residents of Colombo, voted for a new Municipal Council at the local government elections, on the understanding that it was this body that made the decisions that affected life in the city. To whom are these other bodies accountable?
Do we as socially responsible citizens of Colombo have any say at all in the decisions that are being made regarding what kind of city we want to live in?
Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra Colombo 3
Aren’t we paying a tidy sum already to the councils?
The letter to the Editor published on Sunday, August 19, ‘Why not levy a “kunu’ tax?’ states “Almost all of us pay a nominal ‘santhosam’ to the garbage collector to facilitate easy disposal of our garbage. I suggest that by imposing a tax for garbage collection …”
I was perturbed to read this letter. My instant reaction was, why must we pay such a tax, anew? Don’t we pay rates? A tidy sum annually? For what expenses do the local Councils utilise the rate payments from each and every household? Isn’t a portion of the rates we pay set aside for maintaining a healthy environment which includes garbage collection and garbage disposal?
When I read out this letter at a hair dressing salon, the proprietor said he pays more than Rs. 4000 per annum to the Municipality for waste collection from his salon. I am inclined to think that it is highly likely that catering houses, restaurants, hotels and other commercial establishments pay such sums to Local Councils for waste removal.
In my view, in an era, when earned income can hardly pay off the definitive living expenses, the creation of additional income outlets is undesirable. Further, by the time when money from such taxes is parasitised for administrative accounting purposes (book-keeping) at the local council and the Inland Revenue, etc., the underprivileged garbage collector will not get as much as the ‘Santhosam’ doled out by the households through sympathy.
Dr. Susil W. Gunasekera Via email
We cannot allow the GMOA to go on in this manner
Thank you Don Manu again for your fearless Sunday Punch of August 12. The GMOA’s ‘Gestapo’ plans to compile a journalist ‘death list’ has obviously not deterred you from saying what you have said. It is increasingly evident that the ordinary people of this country cannot take the terror tactics of the GMOA very much longer. Enough is enough!
When people refer to the disgraceful behaviour of doctors today, we are in fact referring to the GMOA leadership. It is indeed a great pity that the actions of the GMOA leadership stain the good name of doctors. We have among us many good men and women who are members of this noble profession, but the conduct of the GMOA has given them all a bad name. These men and women of this once noble profession appear to have forgotten that they have been educated at public expense.
This has been said before by many, and I need to emphasise this again. It is pretty obvious to all that the wrong type of people are now becoming members of this noble profession. We all believed that one becomes a medical doctor because of a ‘calling’ to this great profession. However this no longer seems to be the case. How has this happened? The current district based system of admitting students to our universities has allowed not only good students getting low marks at their ‘A’ Levels to enter our state universities for degree programmes, but has also allowed unsuitable persons to pursue certain professions, like the medical profession.
Indeed when the district based system was introduced in the early 1970 s, there was good reason for doing so, as admission to programmes like medical degrees was dominated by students from districts with good educational facilities such as Colombo, Jaffna, Kandy etc. Good students, who wanted to be doctors and serve the people, from districts with limited educational facilities, had no chance. When this scheme of university admissions was introduced, it was made clear that this was a temporary measure, till schools in all districts are brought up to a uniform standard. Today this scheme of admission should be revised, to give a greater advantage to merit. This scheme of university admissions has also shut out good students, who want to be doctors, from state universities. These are not necessarily ‘rich kids’, who can go abroad and get their medical degrees. I believe that this situation is one that justifies the establishment of private medical degree awarding institutes. The GMOA led battle to abolish SAITM, may have been won by them, SAITM may have been badly managed, but we need private medical degree awarding institutes that are well managed and conform to laid down standards, principles, rules and regulations formulated by medical professionals of good standing. On what basis do our medical professionals oppose this?
Eksith Fernando Dehiwela
When you hold protests see that the people are with you
The right to freedom of expression and right to peaceful protest are crucial in a democracy. Information and ideas help to inform political debate and are essential to public accountability and transparency in government.
Members of Parliament are representatives of the people. They must always work in the interest of the people.
They are appointed by the people and paid by the people. In a democracy people are the most important. We see on a regular basis protests by university students, doctors, teachers and nurses.
There are many other protests too. Some are peaceful and some are not.
Protests are necessary to inform the government that there is something wrong. It is the right of the people to give that message to the politicians governing the country.
In the case of frequent protests by university students, the people are against such action.
Some of these student protests are a real nuisance to the people. Their protests do not reflect the requirement of the general public nor is it the voice of people. So these protests are failures and a waste of time.
Some of the doctors’ strikes too are not the voice of the people. People are against these trade union actions. These too are failures.
The trade union action by the Railway workers too was a failure. People were against it. T
he government has the right to control them to protect the general public.
Trade unions and other organizations, please understand this. Organize your protest in such a way that people of the country are with you.
Take a lesson from protests overseas. See how creative they are. Sometimes the whole world is with the protesters. They do it in a systematic way without troubling or harassing the general public.
D. Weeratunga Nugegoda