No
change after a decade
President Chandrika Kumaratunga unveiled a portrait of the late
former Prime Minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike at the Parliamentary
complex on Thursday.
A booklet
containing a speech made by Mrs. Bandaranaike on November 16, 1995
containing some advice for unruly MPs, was given to all present
on the occasion. "I think ours is the worst Parliament in the
world the way we are behaving since late. People are shocked. They
ask did we send them to Parliament for this?
“So,
let us behave ourselves or let those who can run the Parliament
properly come here. Otherwise the people will catch us by the scruff
of our necks and throw us out," were some of her words.
Ten
years on, nothing seems to have changed but instead worsened. And
as for the anticipated reaction of the people, they too seem equally
apathetic at the behaviour of their elected representatives.
People's
reps -what a sight!
Parliament has become a place for many backbenchers, especially
among those in opposition UNP benches, to spend their time messing
round with their fancy mobile phones.
Many
confine themselves to their 'annual' speech delivered mostly during
the budget debate while on other sitting days they put their legs
up and warm their seats in air-conditioned comfort, phones in hand.
We
can only feel sorry for the poor man who stands in a queue to cast
a vote on behalf of such people whose only qualifications to enter
the Legislature are either family connections or plenty of cash.
Clashes
continue
The clashes between the Chairman and the Director General
of the state-run Rupavahini Corporation are hotting up once gain
over who should preside at the senior managers' weekly meeting.
Even
though it is the DG who normally presides, the chairman also insists
he should be the presiding officer. Now the senior managers have
to attend two meetings, one called by the DG and one by the chairman
and at each meeting they are asked not to attend the meeting called
by the other. And this has led to scurrilous posters against the
chairman appearing on the walls of the toilets at the Corporation
.
Deputy
saving dollars?
The one time boss of a local intelligence agency has now
ended up with a top job - the deputy chairman of a precious state
corporation. Intelligence operatives were surprised when the new
appointee went to a leading Asian capital. Instead of checking into
a hotel and utilizing the rich resources of the new Corporation,
the former spy boss chose to stay with an intelligence colleague.
Now
the word is out in the intelligence community in the city. Did he
want to save a few dollars and claim it from the Corporation? Or
was it for safety reasons? Well, well. One local sleuth said it
was for both. |