Twenty One years ago, I became a "Chit MP" (National List MP) of the SLFP. The Country was then beset with the terrorism of the LTTE in the North and that of the JVP in the South. Which brand of terrorism was worse I cannot say: to quote the words of Dr. Colvin R de Silva uttered in Parliament 48 years ago, "I am no expert in the gradation of dirt".
Despite the ravages of these two sets of terrorists and the suffering of the people incumbent thereon, the then President, Ranasinghe Premadasa had no compunction about having extravagant 'birthday parties' at state expense in various parts of the country, expending billions of rupees of public funds. Of course, Premadasa, the politician, saw to it that these exercises in unforgivable wasteful extravagance were not known as `birthday parties' of himself (which they were), but that they were called "Gam Udawa Exhibitions".
We who were then Sri Lanka Freedom Party parliamentarians, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa, condemned unreservedly, this extravagance with public funds of the then President Premadasa for purely personal and political aggrandizement. That criticism bore no fruit. The UNP parliamentarians who included, among others, Ranil Wickremesinghe, defended Premadasa's extravagance.
Today the position is reversed. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is now in power together with its various virtually memberless satellites and those who were `purchased' from other parties. However, without being true to the salutary policies it followed in respect of the wholesale wastage of public funds for personal aggrandizement in the Premadasa era, the SLFP together with its satellite parties of no consequence such as the LSSP, CP, MEP and NFF etc, repeated the horrendous policies of Premadasa by wasting public funds (which include the funds of supporters of the SLFP, supporters of the DNA, supporters of the UNP, supporters of the TNA etc) for an extravagant 'tamasha' for the ostensible purpose of celebrating President Rajapaksa's assumption of office for his second term. But in reality, it was to engage in a massive propaganda exercise for President Rajapaksa and the incumbent Government with public funds.
The purported justification of such wasteful expenditure of public funds put forward by the Government and its `hangers on' was that the celebration of the President's assumption of office for his second term was a `national event', and that several developmental activities coincided with these celebrations.
This, however, was a nonsensical fib which many found it difficult to believe, and was reminiscent of similar fibs uttered by President Premadasa's 'hurrah boys' who justified the extravagant wastage of public funds for his birthday parties called `Gam Udawa Exhibitions'. It was ironic that some of these UNP 'hurrah boys' waxed eloquent in their criticism of the incumbent Government and the wasteful expenditure for the tamasha.
Since the government and the sycophants surrounding it -- like the UNP Government and its sycophants of yesteryear sought to contend in respect of those `birthday parties -- argued that the expenditure of this money was justified on the ground of the development that would result from it, it is incumbent upon them to prove to the people what returns would or could reasonably be expected from such activities and whether the expenditure was consonant with such returns. However, as in the case of the criminally extravagant 'picnic' to New York with an entourage of more than a hundred for the sessions of the United Nations, there was no explanation of the returns that could to be reaped from such expenditure or extravagance.
There will, no doubt, be hordes of sycophants with their dripping tongues hanging out for jobs and other favours from the President, telling him that which they perceive to be what he wants to hear, and hence promoting the idea of idiotic tamashas wasting billions of rupees at a time when the skyrocketing cost of living is causing massive distress to the people.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Government should have realised that by engaging in this kind of criminal extravagance they were only defeating the very objectives they sought to achieve by this tamasha. Such behaviour can only decrease the support the Government has received and continues to receive from the people. |
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