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TIMES POSTCARD
Episodes in Amunugama's transformation - AGA to Minister
By Rajpal Abeynayake
Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama was in a reminiscing mood when he spoke at the launch of Tissa Devendra's book "Horseshoe Street'' last Tuesday. Devendra and he were Civil Service colleagues.

Amunugama spoke of carving up Galle district between the two of them, as Civil Service mates, in matters of distributing flood relief for instance. Ah! those were the days, we could almost hear him say. Nothing like the tsunami, just ordinary homegrown floods.

But things became more interesting as Amunugama started reminiscing about the old political warrior from Galle, Wijeyananada Dahanayake, the ex-MP and Minister. Dahanayake sent him letters in purple ink and blue ink. The instructions to the AGA were: if the letters are in blue handwriting, act upon them -- but if they are in purple, ignore.

But Amunugama learnt that Dahanayake had another side to him when he tried to get the MP to take a ride on an aircraft distributing flood relief. Apparently Dahanayake had a fear of flying. Amunugama says he kept putting off the flight, until he almost told the Minister he just had to get on the aircraft to survey the flood situation in his constituency, there was no avoiding it.

Dahanayake agreed reluctantly, but the moment he got on the flight, he told the pilot "make this as short as possible.'' Amunugama's version is that Dahanayake had shivered through the entire journey. When the plane landed, Dahanayake told Amunugama "don't ever put me on an aircraft again.''

But the punchline to it was that Amunugama was later amused to see Dahanayake holding forth in an interview to the Daily News. He had told the reporter "I never fly in an aircraft because I do not want to waste the taxpayers money.''

Amunugama vouches for the fact that Dahanayake had a fear of flying. He probably did - - and maybe some others Ministers did too. Those were relatively young days for aviation in this country.

But consider that in contrast to Amunugama's current predicament. His President has to cope with Cabinet colleagues (let's reserve comment on Amunugama himself…) whose greatest fear is the fear of not flying.

When the President passed a strict one foreign trip per year rule, this phobia almost struck down many a flying man permanently. What could they do??. Grant an interview like Dahanayake and tell the Daily News "I want to fly because I want to put the taxpayers money to good use."??

We are told that the fear of not flying is much greater than the fear of flying. It might occupy a grater space in Amunugams's eventual autobiography.

This fear of not flying may have taken off from where Dahanayake's fear of flying left off. Some Cabinet Ministers have such a fear of not flying that they will only use taxpayers' money for flying. Recently a Cabinet Minister sacked a board Chairman for not allowing him to charge a private trip to the Board Account. See what we mean?? Dahanayake never sacked Amunugama, however mortal his fear of flying was, right??

But at the end of his eventual autobiography, even Amunugama might be able to say, "I led a good life. I have flown the good flight." Those days the curtain call used to be "I have fought the good fight." But your current Cabinet Ministers have no phobia for fighting. Not for flying either. They have conquered the greatest fear of all instead -- the fear of not flying. They are flying to places they never even knew existed….

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