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Mahinda gorged on foreign cake while people struggled for bread
View(s):President’s Office reveals: Nation’s slide into bankruptcy no bar to foreign junkets with family and friends on taxpayers’ money
Startling revelations regarding Rajapaksas’ foreign travel expenses for 2021 have now been made public by the President’s Office and the Prime Minister’s Office which had earlier refused to disclose to a Right to Information inquiry when the two were under Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa respectively.
First take President Gotabaya’s travel breakdown.
He had spent an austere Rs. 5.4m in September to attend the 76th opening session of the UN’s General Assembly along with other Heads of State in New York, scrupulously paying for his wife’s ticket privately;
He had spent a frugal Rs. 1.8m in October to attend the UN’s 28th Climate Change Summit in Glasgow;
and spent a meagre Rs 5 lakhs in December to attend the Indian Ocean Conference in Abu Dhabi.
The total cost of his foreign travels is approximately Rs 7m.
These three visits can be taken as three minimum ‘musts’ on any President’s travel itinerary for the year. The first, to join other Heads of State to inaugurate the UN 76th Session, the second, to participate in the international conference on global warming which directly impacts every country, and the third, the importance of being present in person at a meeting concerning the island’s own sea, goes without saying.
THE ITALIAN JAUNT: With Lanka on the brink of defaulting, fine dining in Italian style at a chic ristorante with family and friends on public money
The costs incurred in flying to far off destinations such as New York and Glasgow — especially after the massive rise in airfares after the COVID crisis — and the total amount of all three visits totalling only Rs. 7 million, seems fair and reasonable in the circumstances. For all his faults, Gotabaya has been circumspect and kept a miserly rein on his travel expenses.
Not so his brother, Mahinda. While Gotabaya had lived off a hermit’s bowl abroad, Mahinda had drunk deep from a Maharaja’s chalice together with his family and friends, all at public expense.
Consider Mahinda’s travel breakdown for the same year:
He and his wife, along with other members in his entourage, flew to Dhaka in a specially chartered VVIP SriLankan Airlines flight. The purpose of the two-day visit was to join in the birth anniversary celebrations of Bangladesh’s Sheik Mujibur Rahman and to participate in the Independence Day ceremonies of that country. The cost of this two-day visit: Rs 10.5 million.
On September 9, Mahinda Rajapaksa flew to Bologna, Italy. The purpose of the visit was to deliver a speech at a seminar held by a non-governmental organisation, G20 Interfaith Forum, on the topic, ‘Time to Heal: Peace among Cultures, Understanding between Religions’. It was, of course, a subject he could preach by heart though he often failed to follow it in practice. This time on the junket tour he was joined not only by his wife and officials but also by family members and close friends. The cost: Rs. 26 m.
The Bangladesh birthday party and the Italian jaunt cost the Lankan taxpayer a total of nearly Rs. 37m. Compared to Gotabaya’s stoic Rs.7m, Mahinda’s lavish Rs. 37m seems positively vulgar and insensitive to the hardships faced by his people.
In fact, on September 8, only two days before Mahinda left for Italy with family and friends on the public account, he would have heard his brother, then Finance Minister, Basil, warn Parliament of the hard times ahead.
The Sunday Punch of September 12 last year commented: ‘Basil made no bones when he declared the economy was in dire straits, with the present severe foreign exchange shortage coupled with a total of Rs. 1.6 trillion in lost revenues’.
What is shocking in the official revelation this Wednesday, is, perhaps, not so much the figure of Rs 45m as the total costs of the Rajapaksa duos’ foreign travel last year but that, having known so well from Basil’s mouth that the nation’s dramatic slide into bankruptcy was well underway, Mahinda had no qualm in gorging a massive slice of the public funded cake with family and friends, while his people struggled to find their daily bread. The 37million Mahinda spent on his foreign flings with his family, would, in the coming months when public coffers lay bare, have bought a 35 million rupee shipload of oil — as Reuters reported — to last a week, and still left two million bucks to spare.
Thankfully for the nation, the squandering Rajapaksa triumvirate have been driven out of office by the people’s struggle on the Green and the accompanying protests staged throughout the island. Thanks to the citizens, the Rajapaksa family’s direct access to the public coffers, as if it were their family heirloom, has been temporarily stayed. But has the people’s resounding triumph proved at the end a pyrrhic victory? It had cost some their liberty and the struggle’s masthead ‘Aragalaya’ turned into a dirty word by those who gained its spoils. The Rajapaksas have come out from the deadwood, and, though deprived of official status, still rock Lanka’s political cradle. In or out of office, their tentacles have spread so far and wide in the nation’s political tapestry that they still call the shots and their fiat still runs.
No wonder this island, which they made godforsaken to its people, still remains a ‘punya-boomie’ or thrice-blessed land for the three Rajapaksa brothers and their families.
We paid for Basil’s guests, says SLPP, but how much?
A day after the Civil Aviation Authority denied it had paid the breakfast buffet bill for Basil Rajapaksa’s hundred-odd guests at the airport’s Gold Service VIP Lounge, the SLPP secretary stepped in to douse public ire by claiming Basil’s supporters had paid the bill. At a press conference on Monday, SLPP secretary Sagara Kariyawasam MP said: “Basil Rajapaksa and wife have paid USD 200 each for the use of the VIP Lounge at the airport. Payments have also been paid for the refreshments provided to his visitors.” Has it then? If so by whom? And how much? Even as Kariyawasam took pains to specify that Basil and wife had paid USD 200 each to enter the VIP lounge, he should specify the exact amount paid to the airport authority for use of this exclusive USD 200 per head VIP Lounge. Although the airport lounge maybe open to anyone who can afford the USD 200 cover charge, it’s not open to any common stray on the road to drop in for a free patty on the house.  SLPP SECRETARY SAGARA: Says paid but does not reveal amount As last week’s Sunday Punch said: “Basil and wife, duly paid USD 200 each to enter the lounge and enjoy the facilities offered. The fact that the USD200 entry ticket entitles only one person to partake the VIP fare, and does not permit one to invite guests, is evidenced by Basil forking out a further USD 200 for his wife’s ticket. As per the charges levied at Gold Route’s VIP lounge, the bill for hundred people at USD 200 per head should amount to USD 20,000 or Rs. 7,300,000’. The simple question asked of Sagara Kariyawasam, who claims that the bill for guests, including MPs, has been paid, is: ‘Was the entire amount of Rs. 7.3m for guests settled in full? Four similar questions are posed to Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva: “Was a sum of Rs. 7,300,000 or more in respect of the 100 odd guests who were at the airport’s VIP lounge on November 20 morning with Basil Rajapaksa and wife, received in full? If not, what are the steps taken to recover the said sum? If a lesser sum had been accepted as payment in full by any airport official, who authorised it? And what are the steps he will take against the authorising official to recover from him this loss of revenue to the State?” Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, instead of kick-starting an inquiry without any prodding, has kept silent on the issue, as if it’s none of his business. He should awake from his slumber and provide a detailed account of the airport’s VIP Lounge income on November 20. Throughout the years, it is this same callous, casual attitude toward public money, embezzling from the public purse millions of rupees to pay for expensive ministerial whims, with public officials colluding in the cover-up that has led, in no small a measure, to the decline and collapse of the Lankan economy. Last week, the Sunday Times reported that the farewell party given to a retiring public official will no longer be paid for by the State. If the present austerity wave has dashed the traditional send-off to toast a public official’s lifetime of service, how manifestly unjust it will be if the state has paid in full or in part for American returnee Basil’s celebratory buffet for his guests at BIA’s VIP Lounge? The Minister must put the record straight in Parliament and assure the nation that the state has not lost a dime due to the prodigal’s ostentatious return. The SLPP Secretary, Sagara, merely telling the media, as if its truth sworn on the gospels, that Basil’s supporters had paid the bill, cannot be accepted at face value. Neither can his statement that, “as a political party we have never misused public property and we will never do so’, be accepted by any means when it was officially revealed by the President’s Office this week, how Mahinda had busted Rs.37 million of public money on two foreign jaunts with family. No more pulling of wool over the people’s eyes. The Rajapaksa regimes’ corruption and squander have fleeced them enough.
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Truth about the Sangha as Third Refuge of Buddhists
Parliament took the sombre air of a Sunday Daham Pasala in session, when President Ranil and Opposition leader, SJB’s Sajith, renounced their lay duties to engage in a deep discourse over a few of the well-known salient facts found in ancient Buddhist scriptures. On Tuesday, the President gave his own reasons on why he had referred to some errant monks as ‘saffron clad batto’ recently — which had angered some Buddhist monks — and sought to justify his description by citing an example from the Buddha’s own lifetime. He said: ‘Angulimala wore a robe and attacked the Buddha on countless occasions.’ JVP’s Vijitha Herath, whose party is firmly of the monotheistic faith that holds there is no God but one God, and his name is Karl Marx, arose to correct the President on Angulimala. He said: ‘It is the monk Devadattha who attacked the Buddha and not Angulimala who, far from attacking the Buddha, had attained Arahant’s status.’ He also referred to a remark Ranil had made earlier that Buddhism did not speak of equality but only dealt with the Four Truths concerning sorrow and the way out of it. He said that contrary to what Ranil had said about equality, the Buddhist texts reveal that the Buddha had spoken of it. Vijitha quoted the Dasa Raja Dhamma which the Buddha had expounded for just governance, as evidence of it. Jolly good, Vijitha. You have not forgotten the Buddhist texts, despite renouncing the Buddha for Marx. Sajith came on Wednesday to also correct Ranil’s reference to Angulimala. He also countered Ranil’s interpretation of the Parabhava Sutta which Ranil had said had nothing to do with the sangha. Sajith quoted a stanza from the sutta to show it certainly did refer to the Sangha and how showing disrespect to the Sangha can make one a wastrel. He said: ‘I quoted this to show that disrespect to the Maha Sangha is wrong’. One thing was sure. The Dhamma interlude revealed many in Parliament were all good Buddhists, well versed, like the devil, in quoting the scriptures off the cuff. But if Ranil was wrong on Angulimala, was Sajith right as to who exactly constitutes the Sangha. He seems to suffer the mistaken notion that the Sangha comprises monks as well. Do ‘Aragalaya’s rebel monks or political monks like Muruttettuwe Ananda or farming monks like Samanthabadra or financial monks like Borelle Sirisumana or Parliamentary monks like Athuraliye Rathana or even chief monks of iconic or village temples constitute the Sangha? Unless they have attained arahant status or become stream winners who have entered, at least, the first state of sovan, they certainly do not. They are indeed Bhikkus but are not the Sangha the Buddha held as the third refuge of all Buddhists. The Buddha, in the Ratana Sutta or Jewel Discourse, describes the Sangha as those who have Become stream winners, one of the eight persons praised by the wise constitute four pairs (verse 6) attained Nirvana (verse 7: free from defilements, attained the deathless state) realized the Four Noble Truths (verses 8-9), and abandoned the first three fetters that bind all to samsara (verse 10: self-illusion, doubt and indulgence in meaningless rites and rituals) It makes clear, the Sangha are the monks who have followed the path of the Buddha and thus become arahants or have entered the stream and are worthy, along with the Buddha and the Dhamma as being a refuge to all Buddhists. The monks belonging to the Order of Bhikkus do not fall into this exalted category of the Sangha, as they are still not even on the path and become stream winners but mere aspirants yet to step on the first rung, sovan. That doesn’t mean that monks are unworthy of respect. Far from it. But before the people pay due worship to the saffron robed monk, the monk must first respect the revered robe he dons. |
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