Columns

It is customary at this time of the year for families, relatives, friends and others to wish each other a happy, prosperous, productive, and, perhaps most importantly, peaceful new year given the turbulent and troubled times we live in.

One must have a special word for people around the world who continue to struggle under political dictatorships and corrupt governments that have reduced their own people to misery and servitude

Equally or more so, one must surely have a special concern for the people of the land where one was born, and spent many of one’s formative, productive, and professionally satisfying years among educated and intellectual politicians, unlike the vast majority of circus clowns who devastate that land today, pretentiously exuding patriotic zeal and an undying readiness to serve the people.

Even though it is a time of celebration (for those who can afford it, that is) it behoves us professionally or those concerned persons not to turn a blind eye to a recent happening that ultimately affects the health, safety and lives of the people of the country to which we owe much.

I refer to a damning investigative report last Sunday in this newspaper by Namini Wijedasa. It exposed the shenanigans of Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella and his recent trip to neighbouring Chennai in connection with the import of some medicines.

Rambukwella is no stranger to fronting the news. Those who keep their eyes and ears peeled to Sri Lanka’s increasing news sources over the years would vouch for that. Perhaps he is addicted to that old Madison Avenue adage that any news is good news, never mind if it blackens one’s reputation or raises howls of laughter at the spuriousness of his explanations in defence of his many contestable actions.

The current exposé is no joke for it concerns the quality and medically-acceptable suitability of medicines that are imported into the country, which in most cases, do not offer patients a choice but to take what is available.

It might be recalled that it was not too long ago that the politicians and administrators who ran the country’s health services began selecting and importing drugs, not for their quality but their price without too much concern for their effectiveness for the health condition for which they are prescribed.

Admittedly, the price must remain an important factor especially when the country is saddled with governments that believe that defence expenditure must supersede all other essential requirements such as health and education, as it has been in the last three budgets, though that disastrous and debilitating war ended over 13 years ago.

But this leaves the doors wide open for fiddling in the selection of the sources for the import of our medicines and other health needs.

In a country where corruption, bribery and fraud are rampant among politicians and officials and a seemingly innocent Foreign Minister Ali Sabry was, late last year quibbling with the phrase “economic crimes” as used by the UN, it is scant wonder that no person of importance or high up in the political and official totem pole has been held accountable for the abuse and misuse of State assets.

While in nations near and far those who have held high political office such as presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, ministers and even family members are tried, convicted and jailed for corruption and robbing the state, this country continues to hoodwink the people like grand masters of illusion.

With the institutions dedicated to investigating such abuses stultified for political or other reasons, much of the investigative work in exposing the dubious doings of politicians and officials falls on the media, civil organisations and even individual activists.

Space restrictions sadly do not permit me to cite colleague Namini Wijedasa’s exposé at length as that would show how vacuous, irrelevant and inconsequential Health Minister Rambukwella’s subsequent response at a media conference to the string of charges including cabinet decisions, has been.

But Rambukwella has surely heard of that pithy Sinhala saying “koheda yanna, malley pol (where are you going? I have coconuts in the basket) for he practices the art of dodging the obvious with some dexterity.

Let me set aside the question of the rather dubious cabinet papers submitted by him, the finance ministry’s comments on one of them, and conditions laid down by the cabinet with respect to tender procedures and other technical details.

Minister Rambukwella proudly tells the media that he has travelled to 86 countries. So who cares? One of the countries must be Australia where he fell off a balcony at some hotel while trying to cross over to another balcony and landed on some tree or bushes requiring medical treatment. Stories circulating later said part of the medical bill was paid out of the President’s Fund, but that’s another story.

Far more important is who paid his Chennai hotel bill which according to the Sunday Times report that shows a photo of it, was a staggering LKR 433,300 for three nights.

Note carefully that while the minister goes to some lengths to state that he paid for his “travel” even waving a receipt at the media briefing as proof that he reimbursed a friend who initially paid for the ticket, he scrupulously avoids mentioning who paid the hotel bill.

Is it one of the two Indian pharmaceutical firms which is also unregistered in Sri Lanka as a firm qualified to buy medicines from, which Minister Rambukwella has been pushing in one of the cabinet papers as a ready supplier for medicines?

Minister Rambukwella boasts that he is on his 17th passport. So what. Diana Gamage is on her second passport or so the story goes. But then we will know the truth soon enough. Or will we?

But all that is neither here nor there except that the minister’s story has a couple of loose ends. Because of some problem with his credit cards, he had a friend purchase the ticket for him. Without going through all this hassle of ticketing agents turning down his credit cards, he could have had the ministry buy the ticket as he was on an official visit.

Since he was so adamant that he should not waste state money (the state is already wasting enough money with some ministers hardly fit for purpose) he could have reimbursed the ministry.

So he says the “very first thing I did upon landing in India was to repay my friend in cash”. Now that’s interesting. So the friend who paid for his air ticket is from India and there he was waiting for the minister at the airport.

Without having to carry bundles of cash in his pockets or briefcase, past Customs, he could surely have found a friend or two in Sri Lanka who could have bought him the ticket and reimbursed the individual in Colombo. Or would that have been too much to ask?

The Health Minister has said he was on a fact-finding mission in Chennai. Now, what were the facts he was looking for? And did he find them? And would he please disclose his findings in parliament and if not why not.

He says National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) CEO Dr Vijith Gunasekera who accompanied him was “independently funded”. Would Rambukwella disclose what he means by “independently funded” and would Dr Gunasekera explain who funded him when he was on official business?

Space is running out. But there are several questions that need answers. Rambukwella says on his Twitter account that “my job is to expedite and fast track the supply from government to government, cut through any unnecessary red tape and ensure a constant supply of quality medicines” to the local people.

To cut through “unnecessary (sic) red tape” and “fast track” government to government supply surely it is better done in Colombo rather than inside some pharmaceutical factory in Chennai.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)