UNF whiz kids Milinda Moragoda and Ravi Karunanayake have no love lost between them, and this is public knowledge. Therefore, when Ranil Wickremesinghe met his Ministers before the official Cabinet meeting with the President last week, it was hardly surprising to see Milinda Moragoda launching into Ravi Karunanayake. Moragoda said that it has been suggested by Ravi Karunanayake that he (Morgoda) is at least in part responsible for the state of discontent with the cost of living, because the price of flour was within Morgoda's purview.

Mr Karunanayake denied that he had made any such insinuation, but he said that the price of flour was indeed Moragoda's baby, because PERC came under Moragoda's Ministry --- and PERC was the authority under which Prima functioned.

Karunanayake added that it was unfortunate that the flour price hikes were being seen by the public as something he was responsible for, when the subject came under Moragoda. Moragoda however pressed on that the insinuations made by Karunanayake were unfair, and it seemed that there was a high powered food fight going on right inside the Cabinet. Moragoda said that PERC had no authority over Prima.

Eventually the Prime Minister saw that the only way out was to avoid internal battles and place the blame fairly and squarely on the opposition. He said that two special committees on the issues of Economy and Cost of Living should look into these issues, and that the Ministers concerned should not blame each other. The people should be informed on how and why these situations have arisen, he said

The Committee on Cost of Living which is headed by Minister Karu Jayasuriya has been asked to ensure immediate redress to the masses in several areas, such as the issue of rising gas prices, and the issue of skyrocketing phone bills and food prices due to increases such as the recent increase in the price of flour.

The Prime Minister said that redress cannot wait even though redress had been promised by the Ministry of Finance heavyweights by way of a possible public service salary increase in April. But, the Prime Minister was aware that the opposition was becoming increasingly shrill. Mahinda Rajapakse took out a pan and a spoon, held it up in public and said that the opposition will spearhead a campaign to make a 'big noise' about the cost of living. Some UNF Ministers were saying -- part in dejection - - that Mahinda's solution was to give 'Kotthu rotti in place of bread', because he was raising the pan and the spoon in the manner of wayside kotthu rotti makers who were also known to make a very big noise when they chopped vegetable for kotthu rotti. Kotthu rotti or otherwise the Prime Minister was not ready to wait any longer in the face of the opposition onslaught.

The Special Committee on cost of living may have taken note of the high - powered flour fight. The Special Committee has recommended that immediate subsidies should be provided by the government to cushion the price of flour which is dictated by Prima as per agreement signed with the Sri Lankan government (… the previous government extended that agreement.) The exact nature of the flour subsidy to be provided to ensure immediate redress to the masses will be discussed soon when the matter will be taken up by the special Committee on Economic Affairs appointed by the Prime Minister.

It was obvious that both the pre - Cabinet meeting and the meeting of the special Committee on Cost of Living of the government has been rendered helpless in the face of some of the unilateral action taken by multi - national giants Shell and Prima who were notably the biggest offenders in this regard.

Take the gas prices. Shell is now appealing a Fair Trading Commission order to pass on potential interest income to customers, on the grounds that the company earns interest on customer deposits initially charged. Shell Company is now making veiled threats to ' pullout' saying they only make a small income in deposits which is used for maintenance and repair of a large quantity of cylinders. In the meantime, the Fair Trading Commission says it will pursue action for compliance with the order --- and our sources say that Fair Trading Commission officials, lawyers among them, have been approached for bribes through circuitous means to put a stop to their litigation.

However, the Prime Minister told the pre - cabinet session about the vexed issue of having to privatise multi nationals, and also safeguard the masses from various price hike adventures that the multi - nationals then embark upon. K. N. Choksy Minister of Finance reminded for instance that the transport sector was privatised by giving the running of buses to some foreign companies for the simple reason that the government was making colossal losses trying to manage the running of buses.

President’s House tantrums

When the President and Prime Minister met at President’s House, accompanied by their lieutenants Lakshman Kadirgamar and Milinda Moragoda respectively, the President said that she needs to have a bigger say in the peace process because she is a bigger stakeholder than the government thinks. She said she supports the peace but cannot be kept out of the loop.

The Prime Minister said that this was precisely the point of the meeting and proceeded to explain the difficulties involved with the issues of the High Security Zones, and how the government is approaching this issue. But the President said that's beside the point, and that the government seems to have lost sight of the fact that a political solution should be arrived at through negotiations, and that she would like to know what progress is being made on the matter of arriving at a Federal solution. Her final 'instructions' were that she be given a briefing by the Prime Minister every two weeks.

But when the issue of official opposition representation at the peace talks was brought up, the government said it will make its position clear on that issue. The UNF position is that the Liam Fox agreement between these two political parties is still operative, and that according to terms of the Liam Fox 'accord' the government party is only obliged to keep the opposition party informed of progress in certain key governmental matters (such as the peace talks for instance…) but not to include an official opposition representative at the talks.

Therefore, the government is 'not contravening any agreement by not having an opposition representative at the talks', is the current UNF thinking on that issue.

Real issues and unreal happenings

A mass protest took place in the Eastern province over the abduction of a Sri Lankan army soldier by the LTTE in Weli Oya who is now to be tried in a LTTE court. He has retained a lawyer in the LTTE courts.

This is juxtaposition with the scenes of Anuruddha Rawatte being taken to Welikada remand prison with his sons, seemed to give an almost a surreal twist to the larger picture that is Sri Lankan politics. Soldiers whom Anuruddha Ratwatte led (led in a manner of speaking at least) were being abducted and 'tried' in LTTE courts, while Anuruddha Ratwatte himself and his brood were being led in a prison Black Maria to be remanded in the Welikada jail.

The protestors have some interesting posters, some of which asked 'is this the peace that we have been given? Today it is Kumara (the soldier who has been abducted) tomorrow it will be somebody else,' the posters said.

But to add more surreal to the surreal, even as all this was taking place, the President was meeting the Prime Minister, and on or about that time, the President declared that she is not hoping to go for an election anytime soon. What was surreal about it seemed to be that all the messages indicated that the protestors who were making a noise about somebody being tried in a LTTE court, didn't have a chance of a snowball in hell.

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