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The presidential act would have only been surprising if it had not been taken. It was long overdue. For far too long Industries Minister Wimal and his stand-in side kick Energy Minister Gamman, each with two faces and both double tongued, had been allowed free reign to criticise cabinet decisions — even take the Government to court — in flagrant breach of cabinet responsibility.

By being the conniving participant and the outraged critic simultaneously, they had fooled both the Government and the people with their sham double roles for far too long. It was payback time.

It had not augured well for the president, who had swept to power promising to instill discipline into the masses, to have long dithered instilling discipline into his own cabinet. But no matter what outlandish thing Wimal and Gamman did — along with Water Supply Minister Vasudeva, the octogenarian third member of the rebel trinity — to promote their own ratings at the cost of the government’s weal and woe, the executive rod had been spared.

But for months on end, both Wimal and Gamman have shown nothing but contempt for this convention; and have held it as their prerogative to flout it whenever they chose, to score brownie points with the people by seeming to attack unpopular government decisions, only to crawl back into the cabinet and approve the decision or raise their hands in a show of ayes to a draconian Bill in Parliament which they had decried in public the day before.

The axe, which had swiftly fallen on lesser fry like the non-cabinet State Minister Susil Premajayantha in January for merely speaking against government policy to a journalist, had been held suspended over these two ministers, but, alas, when it did fall the damage had already been done. The two had lifted the veil of cabinet secrecy to reveal dissent was rife.

A STEP TOO FAR: President finally sacks Gamman and Wimal after the scathing attack on Basil

The only saving grace for the Government was that the two ministers had been denied from walking out of their own accord as martyrs but as two turncoats who had clung onto their positions and perks and privileges unto the last, and would have clung onto unto the end, if not given the presidential boot and thrown out to the cold.

The event that led to their final downfall was the planned meeting to be held on Wednesday where 30 Government rebels from 11 parties in the Government coalition standing on the same platform and jointly airing their criticism of the Government. The power cuts, the dollar and fuel crises with people fuming on the roads provided fertile ground to place on record they identified with the people.

They had to do something, something grand to show the people they were not totally blind to their sufferings. Something to show that their acquired taste and greed for the perks and privileges had not made them immune to the people’s woe. That their bleeding hearts, though out of step with the nation’s pulse, bled with them.

And yet, it had to be something that did not sound a discordant note to the Government choir, now singing flat, but something masquerading as a seminar of a concerned think-tank within the Government, something that will not upset the apple cart for them and deny them the fruits of office.

In fact, the entire show had been carefully stage-managed to ensure they did not outstep the line. Take the meeting slogan proudly displayed on its banner: ‘Entire nation is on the right road’. This was the cover under which they intended to stage their melodramatic farce, ostensibly in the people’s name.

So on Wednesday, an impotent force of 30 Government rebels took to the public stage to utter their plaintive bleats against the Government they represent, to beat their breast and swear they will stand by the people, in a hollow bid to cleanse the stigma of being accomplices to the imminent death of a nation.

When not even a public flagellation could atone their compounded sins, Weerawansa thought a verbal assault on the Finance Minister would do the trick while Gammanpila believed gentle diatribes against the Government’s visual dysfunction would suffice to launder him.

At the event, Wimal drew his cudgel against the absent Finance Minister Basil’s family sword. In full oratorical flow, he declared: “You cannot solve every issue with an egoistic attitude. Sometimes, you need to seek expert advice, in unprecedented situations.’’ He even called Basil ‘stupid’.

It turned out that the sum of Wimal’s speech amounted to nothing more than to hold Basil as the sole architect of the nation’s collapse; and to suggest, if the offending article was removed, all will be well; and the nation, even without petrol, without diesel, without power, without gas, without dollars and a whole host of ‘withouts’ but provided it was without Basil, can happily saunter on the right road it had embarked under this Government.

Even when the 20th Amendment was presented to Parliament in October 2020, Wimal’s show of public opposition to the bill rested not on its draconian clauses, not on it turning vital independent institutions to merely Presidential rubber stamps, but focused solely on it repealing the dual nationality bar, which if repealed would open the door for American dual citizen Basil Rajapaksa to enter Parliament. But the repeal stayed. For all Wimal’s opposition — done of course in the name of the people — the nation found him raising his hand and, without a blush, supporting the enactment.

It was simply a re-enactment of Wimal grinding his private axe with Basil that was played out on Wednesday, again in the name of the public. If not for Basil, the times were swell for him, never mind the public suffering on his right road.

If Wimal was the bark, then the ever groveling Gammanpila obligingly provided the wagging tail. His criticism of the Government was that ‘’the country is facing the consequences of the Government being blind in identifying and implementing its priorities.

He said: “On Wednesday, the Treasury Secretary announced that he was preparing to issue a Gazette which would stop the import of apples and grapes and other non-essentials to the country. It’s too late, but we
can be happy as it is better late than never.”

Perhaps, he could be happy as he was on Wednesday night still savouring his plums of office but certainly the people can find no grape of cheer to be told that banning common fruits of other lands should make us all happy and applaud the government for its better late than never decision.

On the contrary, in the surrounding gloom the people can find no crumb of comfort but walk around with the symbolic sign found at petrol stations hung around their necks,
‘sapa natha.’

The President has shuffled his cabinet pack only to find the same old knaves turning up. The changing of the guards, with the same old faces, serves only to deepen the gloom.

Only the appointment of Pavithra to the hot seat of another crisis ridden ministry, the Ministry of Power, may glisten with the faint prospect that the nation may shift from fuel dependent power to total hydro power, with the revival of the familiar spectacle of Pavithra, striding atop the Victoria dam, throwing clay pots of enchanted water to beg the weather gods
for more.

While the sacking of Wimal and Gamman from the cabinet closes the curtain on their political burlesque, it does not, however, end the national crisis but portends more troubles ahead for the government. Up to Thursday, their mouths had been sewn up, their silence gained by the concept of collective cabinet responsibility; and their avaricious daggers, used only to carve out slices of the national cake, had remained safely sheathed in cowardice.

But today they have been unleashed, let loose on the public street to stalk the government with muzzles off and knives out.

You can live on Rs.5,900 a month Here’s the good news. And it’s official.  The Lankan citizen can live on Rs 5,908 a month, according to the latest figures released by the Department of Statistics and Census for January this year. But before you go overboard with good cheer, hold on. This is way too high than the figure given by Minister Bandula Gunawardena in March 2012 when he declared that a family of three can exist comfortably on Rs. 7,500 a month. Going by his figures made ten years ago, the average cost per person today has more than doubled from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5,908, with those in Colombo having to find an extra Rs. 506 to make ends meet. That’s inflation for you. Last week, Minister of Irrigation Chamal Rajapaksa asked the public, ‘’tell me because I do not know, but is a kilo of rice ample for two for a week?’’ Wonder what his staple diet is, but he has naught to worry. With the price of the best ‘supiri keeri samba’ at Rs. 275 per kilo, he can well afford on his princely cabinet salary of a minimum Rs. 140,000 a month, to turn rice puller and have not one bare meal of rice per day like the masses but three square meals every day for a whole month with another, and still have Rs 138,900 to spare. Especially if he and his rice mate are both on a strict diet.

Did Lanka barter vital UN vote for Indian oil?On Thursday, a resolution calling on Russia to withdraw her troops from neighbouring Ukraine was presented at the United Nations to its 193 member states. The resolution was adopted with 141 countries supporting it and 5 countries – Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, Belarus and, of course, Russia – voting against it. Though 78 percent of the 181 members present had asked Russia to withdraw her troops, Sri Lanka decided to remain neutral and abstained. By that decision, Lanka officially placed on record at the United Nations, that, to her, it was quite all right that a powerful nation had invaded its weaker neighbouring state and had its troops occupying the land. She was not for the invasion or against it but was comfortable with the situation and could live with it. No need to upset anyone by taking a stand. Her foreign policy: ‘Live and let live.’ Among the 35 nations that abstained were also China and India, each with their own reasons. THE UN: Ukraine vote China, for instance, cannot condemn the principle of invasion outright. She has made no secret that she plans to invade Taiwan in the near future, may be 2025, holding the island of Taiwan has always been an extension of the Chinese mainland. Does India consider Sri Lanka as another pranth of Bharath? Even if she does not, she has made no secret that she will not tolerate any threat on her doorstep should the Chinese plan to use Lanka as a military base. If other excuses are necessary, there are plenty. As the self-proclaimed Godfather of Lanka’s Tamils she had even sent troops to protect them in 1987, not forgetting, of course, her paternal role as the protector of Indian Tamils in Lanka. For reasons of her own, should India — and may God forbid it — decide to invade Lanka in the future, it would not have been diplomatically correct for her to have condemned Russia for invading Ukraine at the UN on Thursday, when she has similar plans lined up against her neighbouring isle. Not wanting to compromise her future position, she may have abstained. But did India, to make her stratagem complete, force Lanka to toe her line and stay neutral and thereby expose her own territorial integrity to risk? On Thursday, within hours of the UN vote in which Lanka abstained, India’s giant oil refinery and fuel retailer, the Indian Oil Corp. issues a statement to Reuters in New Delhi, saying it will supply 13 fuel cargoes to Sri Lanka for the next 5 months under the USD 500 million credit line extended by the Indian Government. Coincidence? Or a thanksgiving gift for following India’s dictum to the letter? Had we bartered our territorial integrity for Indian oil? And that, too, on a credit line extended to us by India herself? Had India killed two birds with one stone, with Lanka paying for the stone as well? Perhaps, we little realised that, when we abstained from the all-important UN vote on Thursday, we were digging our own grave a little deeper to fit in nicely with India’s plans; and to make even easier for her to execute it with the support of the world behind her, having maintained her consistent stance on the issue of invasion.