TAFREN can run, but can't hide from the tsunami botch-up
Mano Tittawela doesn't sound convincing when he dismisses The Sunday Telegraph. He sounds as if he is a politician, irritably, in training. He says ''I don't think we should waste much time over what they are saying,'' without explaining his rationale for that put-out tone.

It’s five months and ten days since the December 26th tsunami, and construction has begun on only 6 percent of permanent housing. Familiar territory. Tittawela didn't have much of a record to go by. Hundred days after the tsunami — work hadn't begun on a single permanent house.
It's the kind of start that cannot easily be defended without going for escape clauses.
Titawella is full of them.

He is the artless dodger. He says "we will issue a retraction to the Telegraph,'' which obviously means that he has nothing convincing to say about the Telegraph criticism (see Sunday Times of last week..) at the moment. He is taking a deferment on the question. Taking a deferment on a question at a press conference can only be a dodge. It’s transparent — Tittawela has no answers. He just copped-out for all to see.
A record of work begun on 6 percent houses only with more than five months on, is not exactly defensible.

But, Tittawela doesn't look the questioner in the eye. He seems to be looking at a spot on the back of the wall of the Sausiripaya auditorium when he says "you cannot apply linear logic on these matters.' The "linear logic'' deduced by me was the following: Tittawela had a press conference at the same venue on the 28th of April, and said that construction work had begun on around 2 per cent of the permanent houses. On June 1st going by his stats, construction work has begun on around 6 percent of the permanent houses.

That means that TAFREN has been able to start work on 4 percent of the permanent houses in the last month. At that rate, TAFREN could hope to start work on 16 percent new houses in the next four months, which is his targeted time for completion of all of the houses. Accounting for the 6 percent of the houses that work has commenced on, it means around one fifth of the target — at the current going rate for beginning construction, per month.

Linear logic, yes, but if exponential logic is applied, Tittawela has to be working at more than five times his current capacity sometime soon. Is this reasonable to expect from an outfit that could not get one permanent house off the ground 100 days after the tsunami struck?? That's what I was getting at, and Tittawela pretended not to comprehend.

It’s as if Tittawela expects us to concede that work has been done, yeah, because the workers have turned a sod, touched a spade, and got the big guys to lay some foundation stones. It's like taking off from Kandy to Colombo in a bullock cart, and claming, somewhere in Mawanella that we have made good ground after two days on the road. But the journey could have been done in three hours in this day of the automobile?

Tittawela will say we do not know about that, ask the bullocks, they will say that this kind of activity takes three days at least. He will then look at that spot on the wall, and say "let's not argue about the future'', and pretend that he has given a smart answer. Anyone, just about, can get the tsunami-damage under control that way.

Nobody needs to get aggrieved about it, or pout or go into a tantrum because they feel under appreciated. It's granted that tsunami reconstruction was no walk in the park. But, it’s when Tittawela tries to show he is so much under control without being the slightest bit self-effacing about the obvious shortcomings that we feel he is a emotionally linear -- never mind the exponential claim appended to his logic.

We are not picking holes here — the holes are so large and apparent, that not even Titawella's jolly girth can hide them. The Chairman of the UDA, for instance, said at the same press conference, that it takes just four week to alienate land for tsunami victims because that's done under Presidential fiat.

But, the TAFREN refrain has been that land is a scarce commodity. The President told CNN in her interview that sand is a scarce commodity as well. But, how's her tsunami czar to worry about sand, when he can't implement the arrangement she made with regard to the land?

Land can be alienated in four weeks, but, the government had not been able to find the land because, it's said, there is not enough available close to the sea.
But not all livelihoods require kissing proximity to the ocean — not the Hotel trade for instance?

The mechanisms are there, but the government has been boxed into a linear mindset; the TAFREN has not been unable to think of anything ingenious, such as apartments, or condominiums — at least not in large part And he tells us about linear logic???

Tittawela might get close to his 100 per cent in the end, with a near miracle, but he has already prepared the ground to default on that. He says "I can't give any guarantees that we can keep to the exact targets.''
But here is a thing or two suitable for mulling over, if you don't work for TAFREN that is:

Tittawela can get somewhere close to the targets we'll assume, but has he vindicated one bit, with his tortoise start, the government rationale to keep the tsunami reconstruction process limited, circumscribed, and totally under its control?

The government did not let a thousand flowers bloom in the tsunami reconstruction process — it cut off all ‘uppity’characters such as private sector and reliable NGO sector operatives who wanted to get involved with a reasonable degree of autonomy.

In the fashion of the butcher, the government announced, we are in charge of the prime cuts here, anybody can look after the offal. It was a Hitlerite way of reconstructing.

About the result — ask anyone who has gone from a tent to a temporary house, when they could have gone from a tent to a permanent house.

In fact, my calculations have been made, siphoning off 20,00 houses from the government's intended target. The TAFREN hopes to build 97,000 permanent houses — my percentage calculation was based on 77, 000. That's just to give the guys a concession — and then what do we come up with. Linear logic?

As the President told CNN this week ''we have only just begun to construct houses.'' She couldn't be clearer on that. Five months on, and the aircraft gets off the ground. We are told that we can reach London in five hours. Never mind that lovely elongated delay at the airport... For those of you who believe us about getting to London on time — there is duty free shopping too.

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