These and other details were divulged when Buckingham Palace last week proclaimed its commitment to openness and accountability in the use of public money when palace officials published for the first time a breakdown of the Queen's civil list expenditure. It was reported that publication of the Queen's civil list expenditure "will be an annual event reflecting concern among the Queen's advisors that the monarchy must be seen to be publicly accountable".

Obviously the British royal family, in baring its expense accounts to the public voluntarily, expects more transparency on how the Queen expends the taxpayers' money for her upkeep. There has been no real furore about specific cases of extravagance on the part of the British monarch. Even though incurable anti-monarchists have perennially been calling for the monarchy to be abolished on the grounds of it being a burden on taxpayers, these protests have been general outcries aimed at the monarchy from the eccentric fringe.

Compare and contrast that record with our own, where the newspapers have been consistently exposing instances of wastage of public funds by ministers and other top elected officials. Recent comments in this column have pointed to the proclivity for needless globe-trotting among ministers who are used to travelling with a large entourage of friends and relatives.

The British monarch's expenditure reports ran into more than 160 pages. The Queen's accountant claims that the cost of the monarch's upkeep was 58 pence per year for a Briton - the cost of a newspaper. If similar computations are made for our own President, ministers and members of parliament, the cost per citizen is bound to be much higher. But can we even begin to calculate the cost when most expense accounts are not available for public scrutiny?

Wait and see?
The news that Sri Lanka's economic contraction is over and that there is marginal economic growth of .01 percent may be heartening to the Greenspans of the Sri Lankan economy, but it certainly won't mean much to Punchisingho or citizen Perera. The Sri Lankan economy is apparently on tenterhooks according to key economists, for the simple reason that the peace process is still hanging fire.

The UNF cannot be expected to work miracles, but a positive economic forecast of a healthy 3.7 percent growth for the full year has been made.

But a complete economic recovery is difficult when the attitude of the movers and the shakers of the economy is one of "wait-and see''. On the peace front, moreover, what they are seeing is a lot of disagreement on dates, and an increasing sense of insecurity over sporadic confrontations between the LTTE and various other entities. Apparently, the LTTE now wants to arm its political offices in the latest move. The LTTE's claims for various concessions over and above those granted in the ceasefire agreement, have always been presented in such a way that the government has not been able to refuse to grant these demands. A promise of peace acquires a life of its own, and the government, caught to some extent in its own version of the peace-trap, seems unable to refuse to grant anything the LTTE demands for fear of scuttling the peace process and bringing down with it the hopes of a better life which are so inextricably tied to the expectation of peace.

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