• Taxpayers' alliance to fight misuse of public funds
• Venerated for ever
• Remedy for dark nights
• Lottery thuggery
• Political police: a past lesson

Taxpayers' alliance to fight misuse of public funds

Since Independence, successive Sri Lankan governments have either ignored or disregarded taxpayers. They have been taken for granted.

Successive governments have also squandered the taxpayers' money. There has been no government accountability to the taxpayers or the public. As a result taxes which have been contributed to the Treasury have sometimes been spent by governments like private funds.

In the recent past, such spending of tax money for personal aggrandizement has reached Himalayan heights. Had these funds been expended on public utilities, the people would have benefited enormously.

It is imperative for the voice of the taxpayer to be heard and accepted by any government in power. It is now time for a taxpayers' alliance to be formed to restrain and curb the wanton waste of public funds by governments, whose members and officials are exempted from income tax. Wastage of tax money is immoral.

What the 'haves' (taxpayers) give the state should be channelled for the improvement of the living conditions of the 'have-nots' (non- tax payers) instead of heaping material comforts on parliamentarians.

A taxpayers' alliance which should comprise personal and corporate taxpayers should have the following objectives:

1. To ensure that taxpayers are not harassed or penalized for small errors or omissions on their part;

2. To assist the inland revenue authorities to expand the taxpayer base from the very small percentage of regular wage-earning profit-earning registered taxpayers in the country;

3. (a) To advise and induce the government to introduce a simple low taxation scheme to encompass a wider spectrum of taxpayers who will voluntarily pay their dues;

(b) To decentralize tax collection districtwise when introducing this scheme;

4. To request the government to have on its budgetary committees at least two representatives from the taxpayers' alliance;

5. To have at least two representatives of the alliance on the monitoring committees or the public accounts committee in Parliament;

6. To have a representative of the alliance on every tender committee involving multi-million rupee purchases of arms, industrial machinery or large construction projects of the government;

7. To have at least one member of the alliance represented in Parliament;

8. To give recognition to long-standing personal taxpayers and corporate bodies who have diligently paid their taxes for over 25 years.

Nissanka M. Ediriwira
Colombo

Venerated for ever

Malini Hettige
An Old Sanghamittian,
Galle

Remedy for dark nights

While I appreciate the idea of issuing fluorescent lamps to lighten the burden of consumers, I feel that at a time like the present, when the economy is in crisis, the public should shoulder a part of the burden. Therefore, my suggestions for the authorities are: 

The CEB should obtain the requirements of each consumer to replace the normal bulbs in each household. If 15 CFL bulbs costing an average of Rs. 250 each are needed, the total cost would be Rs. 3750 for each household. If the consumer's electricity bill for a month amounts to Rs. 300, with the energy saved by using CFL bulbs he would have to pay only Rs. 60 per month.

Add Rs. 200 as reimbursement of the cost of CFL bulbs and his total payment would be Rs. 260; thus saving Rs. 40. Over a period of 19 months the CEB will recover the outlay of Rs. 3750. Thus the consumer saves Rs. 40 per month while the CEB saves 80 percent of energy and does away with dark nights. 

D. D. Weerasinghe 
Kundasale

Lottery thuggery

A similar experience was related to me by a friend who did not want to be involved in "letter-writing", as he put it. The issues raised by both parties are:

1. Can the National Lotteries Board (or any other such institution) compel a winner to have his/her photograph to be taken against his/her wishes? 

2. Can such a body insist on publishing the names and/or addresses of the winners, again without their consent? 

3. If the winner objects to such publicity can they be threatened with withdrawal of a prize? 

4. Would not such action be an infringement of their fundamental right to maintain their independence and/or privacy? 

5. The story of "the need to prove one's identity" does not arise if one produces an authentic NIC or passport. 

P.A.W. Goonesekera
Colombo

Political police: a past lesson

Though there are a handful of honest policemen, many were lackeys of the former government and close their eyes to heinous crime. 

Statistics should be compiled of all police officials who refuse to entertain complaints made against politicians. 

One is reminded of officers in bygone eras who fearlessly resisted political pressure. 

The story is told that when recruitment to the police was being made, a candidate whose chest measurement fell short of the stipulation had been told to leave. 

Some hours later this candidate had reappeared with a letter from a high politico.

The officer overseeing recruitment, Sydney de Zoysa, had the policeman on duty take the chest measurement of this candidate once again, after keeping that letter on his chest. 

He had then told the would- be recruit to go back to the Loku Mahattaya and tell him that even when his chest was measured inclusive of the note he sent, it failed to reach the required standards. 

In another case, a notorious criminal from Ampara was arrested while he was meeting the then Prime Minister W. Dahanayake who was on a visit to the area. 

Sydney de Zoysa who spotted the man had gone up to him, held him by the scruff of his neck and told the Prime Minister, "Excuse me Sir, this man is wanted by the police." And the Premier made no effort to interfere. 

S. Barthelot
Batticaloa