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Odds and Edns
A job at any time
Commerce Minister Ravi Karunanayake's co-ordinating secretary who happens to be a sibling of a hairdresser of repute well known as the President's beautician had a job offer from the first lady herself. After learning that the hairdresser's brother was working for Mr. Karunanayake, the President had quipped, "couldn't he find a better minister to work for," and later added, "Tell him to come here, I'll give him a job". So the secretary now goes about saying, "even if I am fired tomorrow, I am assured of a job at the Presidential Secretariat".

Falling asleep at their post
Officials at the Ministry of Science and Technology appear to have been dozing while others were preparing to get a closer look at Mars. It was only after the Minister queried from the planetarium staff what plans were afoot to facilitate members of the public to watch a rare celestial phenomenon through the planetarium telescopes that they made hurried plans. Maybe for the next sighting in 60,000 years, they would be better prepared.

Strike a way out
A scribe who contacted the University Grants Commission (UGC) in an attempt to get the telephone number of a lecturer had no luck. When a female staffer was asked to help out, she had retorted, "everyone here is on strike and so am I".

Better on Sunday
When the JVP's four day protest march culminated in Colombo on Thursday, it was the thousands of office workers heading for home who were kept kicking their heels for several hours stuck in traffic jams.

Even routes, which the protesters were not taking, were closed and some people were inside buses and cars for more than four hours.

Maybe the next time they organise marches to galvanise public support, they would get more sympathy if they choose a Sunday or a public holiday instead of the rush hour on a working day.

Southern team interacts with the northern people
A team of concerned activists working with farmers, fishing communities, workers and rural women in the South, visited Jaffna recently for a dialogue with the Tamil people on problems affecting their livelihoods and the current impasse in the peace process. Sarath Fernando a spokesman for the team said they interacted with rural workers, fishermen, displaced people in welfare camps, university academics and civil society groups.

He said the journey on the A 9 highway beyond Vavuniya was an experience in itself as they saw for themselves the devastation caused by the war and the longer term consequences of the exclusion of this part of the country from development programmes in the past decades.

"We also gained first hand experience of the security checks when crossing from government controlled areas to LTTE controlled areas and vice versa. In the peninsula, we were struck by the overwhelming presence of fully armed security personnel all over Jaffna town and its environs. We were to learn more about the High Security Zones (HSZs) and the socio-economic consequences of their establishment and continuation.

The HSZs occupy considerable extents of land within the peninsula and along its coast. Tens of thousands of people displaced from these areas are not only without decent shelter but also have lost access to their means of livelihood", Mr. Fernando said. According to local NGOs, the livelihoods of over 16,000 farming families and 4,400 fishing families have been directly affected, while the total number of families displaced due to the HSZs is around 30,000.

"We had the opportunity to interact with some of the fishing and farming families who shared with us their experiences of coping with the disruption and insecurity caused by displacement and restrictions placed on their physical mobility to earn their living. "We find it unacceptable to prolong the denial of access to the means of livelihood for thousands of innocent people in the name of security", he said.

"We are aware of the need to maintain the pre ceasefire balance of military forces in the region. However, this should not be achieved by perpetuating the agonies of the affected local population. The peace process can have meaning to these people only when they regain their right to livelihoods" Mr. Fernando said.

He said their attention was also drawn to the growing problem of intrusions by Indian and other foreign fishing vessels into the territorial waters of northern Sri Lanka. There have been conflicts between Lankan and Indian fishermen with adverse consequences to the former.

"The local fishermen also told us that the Indians were using banned nets and adopting practices that contribute to over-fishing and damage to coral reefs and breeding grounds", Mr. Fernando said, urging the authorities to take early action to protect the marine resources.

He said the dialogue provided them with an opportunity to collectively reflect on the socio-economic and environmental impact of the neo-liberal economic policies of the past twenty five years in the south. Among the key issues addressed were workers' rights, direct and indirect privatization of natural resources by corporate capital and the exploitation of women in the Free trade zones and in the informal sector.

There was strong consensus that the peoples of the north and the south should jointly demand the right to choose policies that ensure equitable and democratic development, Mr. Fernando said. The team included Charitha Wijeratne, Rohini Weeratne, Herman Kumara and Padma Pushpakanthi - Savisthri

Once a flourishing textile mill now in the doldrums
By Pushpakumara Jayaratne
Though the state presumes that privatization is the panacea for all ills and is going on a privatizing spree, in some cases it hasresulted in bringing about adverse effects for employees as in the case of the once well known Thulhiriya Textile mills which was subsequently privatized and named Kabool Lanka.

Some privatised ventures had benefited as a result while some business which were money spinners had, after being sold to private owners, ended up in chaos and loss of profits in addition to causing massive worker unrest .

Thulhiriya textile mills which came into being during the 1965 regime of Mrs. Bandaranaike was a gift to the state from Germany at the time Dudley Senanayake was Prime Minister. By 1974 its work force was around 5000.

In 1998 it had recorded sales of more than was eight million US dollars and today it has droped to less than two million which amount is hardly sufficient to pay the workers and indebted to two banks. It owes the banks a staggering 4790 million rupees which is 3000 million rupees more than its total assets.

It is said that Kabool Lanka has failed to contribute to the Employees' Provident Fund and ETF to the tune of 70 million rupees. In 1982 the management was taken over by an Indian company and in 1989 under the then UNP government at the time U.B.Wijekoon was the Textile Minister, Thulhiriya textile mills changed hands and was renamed Kabool Lanka.

Many questions were asked in and outside parliament at the time. Though at the beginning 90% of the production was to go to foreign markets and the balance distributed to the local market, in course of time this decreased to 5%.

The workers of the company are members of two powerful trade unions, Sri Lanka nidahas sevaka sangamaya affliated to the SLFP and the & JSS affiliated to the UNP.
Initially benefits that accrued from production were shared among the workers and perks like subsidized meals, transport facilities and bonuses were offered to them.
With the introduction of the tax free facility for textile imports in 1995 after PA came into power import of cloth increased from 10% to 50% and imported cloth flooded the local market resulting in the company having to face stiff competition.

The Koreans in an effort to cushion losses ventured into other enterprises like erecting a power house, a computer spare parts factory and a lace factory, but all these ventures ended up in trouble. According to the former Chairman of Kabool International, C.H.Park claimed 100 acres of the 250 acre extent had been used to put up a Golf link and some Rs. 38 million rupees had been spent on it.

An International Training school built by them ultimately had to be rented out on a daily rental basis for outside training classes. The rest of the factories too faced closure including the Magnetic centre in the FTZ.

The Koreans who bought the Mattegoda textile factory commenced producing lace there and of these enterprises only the power house proved fruitful helping the national grid. The Koreans financed all these new ventures by using the profits from Thulhiriya .

Even their other enterprises outside Sri Lanka were benefited from these funds.
As many as 3200 employees worked in the factory and the monthly pay roll was over 200 million rupees while over 100 million rupees was spent on perks and payment to the Korean staff of 15.

Even the 6.5 million rupees that came from an order for school uniforms in 2001 was not enough to cover the losses. Another reason for the losses was having to sell cloth lower than market prices. In the face of a massive bank debt of 4790 million rupees the HNB is doing its utmost to salvage the institution. Currently the payments and production material is made from the funds provided by the HNB

Even workers' wages and the purchases are met by this bank which goes to show the sorry state it is in. To counter the situation the workers have united sans party labels while Trade Union leaders at national level and politicians from both sides have made attempts to save the institution.

A parliamentary debate on the issue was requested and the President is to be informed of the plight of the factory. The secretary of the Nidahas Sevaka Sangamaya, Nandasiri Munasinghe said that the sad plight calls for a general post- mortem of enterprises privatized hitherto adding that a meeting of Kabool bosses and Bank officials must be called to solve the crisis.

But the JSS representative Rohitha Sriyantha claims that the main cause for the problems in the factory has been the inefficient management, and not because it was privatised.

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