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The religious ceremonies to unveil “Sanda Hiru Seya,” the newly constructed temple in Anuradhapura to mark the victory in the three decade long northern insurgency, was held last week under the patronage of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

From the President’s office, a top official was making his way to attend an event. He was accompanied only by his driver.

Somewhere midway he noticed a convoy with a motorcycle escort approaching. Soon, one of the riders signaled that the vehicle needed to be moved to give way to the VIP vehicle approaching. Accordingly, the driver of the Presidential official’s vehicle gave way for the other VIP vehicle to pass by.

He realised it was the secretary of a ministry who had just passed by in the second VIP vehicle.

At the ceremony, the Presidential official was joined by a senior officer from the Prime Minister’s office. They took their seats, but soon were told that they could not sit there. They were given marching orders, so to say, by the military personnel in charge of the arrangements who clearly did not recognise them, and were simply following orders as they must do in the military.

The two officials slithered away to the back row seats only to find their seats were taken by the wives of two other officials.

So much for protocol. The two senior civilian officials from the President’s office and the Prime Minister’s office must surely have got a first hand experience of who runs the show these days.

While CoL skyrockets Trade Ministry rents plush office to meet VIPs

While the cost of living is rising beyond the skies, the Valuation Department has authorised the payment of a massive monthly rent of more than Rs 7.2 million for a building to be used by the Trade Ministry, a document tabled in Parliament revealed.

The Department had written to the Trade Ministry Secretary stating that it authorises the payment of Rs 7,255,500 as monthly rent, the amount quoted by the owner of the building at R. A. de Mel Mawatha in Kollupitiya.

In the letter sent in March this year, the Government Valuer said that the proprietor will undertake all repairs and pay taxes due, and recommended that the lease agreement be made for two years with the same conditions.

The document was tabled by Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena in response to allegations by Samagi Jana Balwegaya (SJB) parliamentarian Induni Amarasena about the high rent for the ministry building.

The Minister defended the move to rent the building saying the Ministry was in need of a spacious office as many institutions were affiliated to the Trade Ministry.

He added that given the importance of trade relations, and that the ministry worked closely with foreign countries with regular visits by various delegations, ambassadors and other VIPs to the Ministry requires such a spacious building with adequate facilities. The Minister accused the previous Government of renting buildings for higher amounts and accused the SJB Parliamentarian of trying to mislead the people on the rent issue. It seemed another case of ‘you did it, so why not us’.

Foundations built on sand

Politicians are known for setting up charitable organisations in their name and often have them incorporated by Acts of Parliament to give them legal teeth.

The latest additions to this list are the Roshan Ranasinghe Jana Sahana Foundation, the Sisira Jayakody Siyapatha Foundation, the Arundika Fernando Relief Services, the Godfrey Fernando Memorial Foundation, the Hector Appuhamy Helping Hand Charity Foundation, and the Ananda Aluthgamage Development, Social Services and Charity Foundation.

While these are set up with the supposedly noble objective of serving charitable causes, it was probably the fervent hope of the people that these foundations are really for the noble causes they are said to support and not for the furtherance of their political activities and personal aggrandizement.

Under pressure from HR groups, Scotland Yard stops training Sri Lanka Police

For human rights outfits based in the West and supported by various Sri Lankan diaspora groups, this week’s decision by Scotland Yard not to extend its training contract with Sri Lanka’s Police, following allegations of human rights abuses came as a small victory for their years-long advocacy.

Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters building of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial Police force responsible for policing the 32 boroughs of London.

Scotland Yard’s Head, Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said the contract which was due to expire next March, would not be extended considering the human rights abuse records of Sri Lanka and indicated a review was required to assess the situation in that country.

The decision was the outcome of years-long advocacy work of various outfits. The latest attempt was a collective letter sent by a group of British MPs and Members of the Scottish Parliament to the British High Commission in Colombo to stop the funding of this training programme through UK taxpayer’s money. Because there was supporting documentation of allegations of Police brutality and extrajudicial killings in custody.

After this, the attention of those organisations turned towards Australia to step up the pressure from Australian authorities to stop ongoing assistance to Sri Lanka Police.

In Jaffna Indian Consul General in trouble over flowers

The Jaffna-based Indian Consul General would have never thought accepting a flower garland as an honour at a tree-planting campaign event could land him in controversy, at least till he saw the newspapers the following day.

Consul General Raakesh Natraj who himself is a former journalist was invited to a function last Sunday at Kittu Park in Jaffna by a local environmental advocacy organisation headed by former Provincial Environment Minister P. Iynkaranesan. The tree-planting campaign began last Saturday to mark the week of remembrance or Maveerar Day, which was designated as Martyrs Day by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to commemorate fallen cadres. The park itself was named after a former notorious LTTE Commander of Jaffna.

At the event, everyone was welcomed at the entrance with the flower Karthikaipoo (Gloriosa Lily or Niyangala) given as an honour. Certain media institutions in the North and in the South portrayed his participation as support for the cause.

In Colombo, the Indian High Commission had to issue a statement to put a full stop to the controversy.

“The Consul General had attended this event upon invitation and such participation can in no way be associated with the organisers or their acts, outside the official programme, about which he had no prior information.”

Pakistanis arrested for taking photos of Indian High Commission

Three Pakistanis were taken into custody by the Kollupitiya Police for allegedly photographing the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

The three individuals arrived in the country on a tourist visa and were staying at a hotel in Kollupitiya. The Police are conducting further investigations over the incident after informing the Pakistani High Commission of the arrests.

Neck deep in debts: CBSL has clever officials, says the Governor

At the monthly media briefing held on Thursday, followed by the Monetary Policy Review, at the Central Bank, Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal defended his team when asked by a journalist whether he was considering hiring an international consultant to ‘restructure’ the debts of the country.

The journalist’s question came in the background of the country facing challenges to honour its debt repayment commitments next year, in the wake of mounting debt-servicing commitments that are coming up. These include a USD 500 million bond in January, followed by USD one billion of debt that matures in July. The Central Bank’s foreign reserves were USD 2.7 billion last month.

By pointing out to the Deputy Governors and senior Central Bank officials who were seated alongside him, Governor Cabraal asked: “Why, do you think these people are not good enough? All these people with PhDs, and complete knowledge on the country’s finances. You have no faith in them and you want to get a person you do not know from a different country to come and do that?”

Governor Cabraal said some of the local firms also provided debt structuring services on a daily basis and the subject was nothing new for Sri Lanka to hire a foreigner to come and give lessons on how to restructure the debts.

“I have full faith in the team we have. These are Sri Lankans who have gone to the best universities, and have the best experiences to tackle these matters. Some people when think an item or work seems flowery, we have to get someone from abroad to do it. We have all the competence we require,” Governor Cabraal said.

The Governor did not stop there but went on. He said currently at the Central Bank, there were more than 30 PhD holders, more than 200 people with Masters degrees in addition to being chartered accountants or lawyers and professionals from nearly every other discipline.

One scribe was heard telling a colleague; “Wonder why we are in such a plight with all these clever people”, only to be told; “That is because we elect even cleverer people.”

Ruling party politicians fear public humiliation in their electorates

One State Minister could not get gas for his family and his wife asked “Den sapada?”

These days, politicians, particularly from the ruling party, are deliberately delaying visits to their own constituencies. This is apparently to avoid public humiliation by people who are struggling with the skyrocketing cost of living and the Government’s own blunders like the fertiliser crisis.

In some instances politicians were hooted at and chased away when they tried to engage with the agitating people. It seems the latest tactic has been to express solidarity with the people rather than painting a rosy picture of the Government by defending its initiatives, even if some of them are poor policy decisions.

At a party meeting in Puttalam this week, two State ministers openly acknowledged the difficulties faced by the people through first-hand experiences. They were Coconut, Kithul and Palmyrah Cultivation Promotion State Minister Arundika Fernando and Foreign Employment Promotion and Market Diversification State Minister Piyankara Jayaratne, who were elected from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

Despite being a State Minister in the ruling party, Mr Jayaratne said even he could not get a new cylinder of gas on time for his family after they ran out of gas. He said the incident led his wife to ask: ‘Den sepada?’- a slogan popularised by the current Prime Minister when he was the Opposition Leader to ridicule the then Government policies.

The minister said he had no alternative other than to respond by saying: ‘Den sapai.’