Columns

• Revelation that bank served staff staggering pay rises invokes envious outrage

Next time you stroll down Galle Face Green, lengthen your walk to pass the old Parliamentary building where 76-year-old icons stand helplessly cemented to their pedestals, unable to dismount and express their dismay over the direction the nation is heading without compass or map, with nothing more than misplaced faith in slogans.

Cross the roundabout where three Lankan lions laze by their waterhole spout, and go past the capital’s first high-rise tower with a kiosk in the sky that was once the ‘in’ place to chill. Softly proceed a few more yards until you near a clock tower where time often stands still for the locale’s privileged habitants.

Stop. Hush, for you, my friend, stand on hallowed ground. For here, tucked away like the Vatican in Rome, within the deceptive façade of a philistine-designed monstrous building on your left, is the land’s independent utopian state of pampered Jades, the ‘monarchs of all they survey’.  On their left, despite President’s House being a stone’s throw away, ‘there is none to dispute’, and ‘from the centre all round to the sea’, they are the Czars who don the economic jackboot.

Within this utopian state is a paradise isle unto itself, where wealth, privileges, foreign travel freebies and pleasures flow endless, and security of tenure is guaranteed, with a 3-year inflation-proof lifelong pension on retirement.

Its one and only reigning god is the Governor who cannot be removed from the holy seat except for violating monetary rectitude. He is blessed with divine omniscience to foresee economic and monetary trends and supply the prayed-for answer, and his pronouncements in these fields—like those of the Holy See’s Pope on Christianity—are held as infallible.

In addition, like the Pope has his own Council of Cardinals to advise him, the Central Bank’s Governor has his own Board of Monetarists whose glorified elevations to this inner sanctum, are heralded as if they had been beatified as saints.

If you feel the Galle Face Green’s early morn ozone gives you an exhilarating kick to your mind, imagine what permanent high those who breathe the rarefied air of power pervading within this building must live on? For here lies the true fount of state power, the original spring from whence it stems. And controlling the source, the Governor and his band of monetary men, hold its tyranny.

SAVIOUR TURNED SELF SERVER? The man who managed the economic fallout due to government extravagance, now challenged by the fallout from his own extravagant pay increases to his Central Bank staff

Real power resides not in the constitutionally all-powerful president nor in the law-making powers of Parliament nor in the armed forces whose power comes through the barrels of guns nor in the sovereign franchise of the citizens with the power to change government but dwells in the hands of the Central Bank’s esoteric oligarchy whose unchallenged right to prescribe whimsical solutions can make or break them all and—as ex-Guv Nivard Cabraal remorselessly showed—bring the nation’s economic life to a standstill. For those who control the purse strings of a nation, wield power over every facet of its life.

Oops! Sorry, almost forgot to mention. To make the system replete and make the wheels smoothly turn, it is liberally greased with ample money. If the lolly depletes, it’s no big deal. The Bank, which controls the nation’s money supply on a tight rein, has its own printing machine and uses it to print its own money which certainly comes in handy whenever it’s short of cash. Neat, isn’t it? No wonder the Governor signs the nation’s currency for he is the printer, the issuer and, sometimes, the ultimate end-user.

Even with such a surfeit of power hidden beneath the velvet-gloved hands of the bank, it hasn’t stopped its Governor from demanding the bank’s independence be sheathed in legal armour for more protection against meddlesome governments with political agendas. That politics and monetarism don’t mix, was the basis of justification. The government, though grudgingly, obliged.

The Central Bank, long held with awe by a bedazzled people as the Mecca of their hopes, however, got its wake-up call this week when the alarm rang loud of protests at their door. The shocking revelation that the Governor had, in these times of soaring living costs and stagnant salaries and all-round poverty, generously wielded the public spoon to privately serve himself and his entire bank staff a thumping over-the-top increase in their pay packets.

If the Central Bank had, in these past two years of the nation’s beggary, received public reverence as the only institution that can usher a new resplendent dawn, then this week’s revelation also reposed within its grotesque edifice, the people’s collective envy and parliamentary outrage.

Had the massive salary hikes been done after Lanka had safely crossed the perilous rope bridge, the people would have been the first to applaud and held, with gratitude, as due rewards to Lanka’s new golden heroes who’d held the fort and won the economic war. But for these highly paid public fat cats to serve themselves extra-rich full cream milk while the rest of the nation are on a starvation diet and battling wolves at the door, smacks of sheer callousness and stinks as unjust enrichment.

Prompted by IMF demands to robe the Central Bank in an independent political-proof vest to prevent it being molested again as the Rajapaksa triumvirate had done during their past regimes, the Government enacted amendments last year that enshrined Central Bank’s independence in the statute books. But, alas, before four months could lapse, the Governor and his Deputy Governors stand accused of abusing the immunity granted to serve themselves a sky high pay rise.

Consider the following without drooling if you can:

n The Bank’s Deputy Governors get their pay enhanced by 712,000 to total 1,687,000, while Assistant Deputies get theirs topped up by 522,000 to total 1,238,000. Heads of Departments, the next in the first top tier, get an extra 430,000 to total 1,030,000.

n An entry level Staff Officer receives an extra sum of 184,000 to total 514,000 and Management Assistants at all 5 levels get an average increase of 94,000 totalling an average pay of 306,000 while the peons at all three levels at the Central Bank have to make do with a measly average hike of 47,000 to total an average salary of 199,000 per month.

n The pay rise to the Governor himself served by himself remains shrouded in secrecy. Whether its disclosure will prove far too embarrassing to ‘evil eyes’ or far too modest to deserve high praise to make humbleness blush is known so far only to him and his maker.

During last Friday’s South East Asian Central Banks Governors’ Conference in Mumbai, Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe ‘emphasised the importance of Central Bank independence and accountability’, according to an X message from Central Bank.

But can he be proud that – within 4 months of the all new Central Bank Act coming in to effect last September – he has used his newfound independence to further his and his staff’s monetary fortunes to such extreme extents, and, thereby, to also automatically increase the size of their pensions? And thereafter, to present both feats, executed with one fell stroke, as a fait accompli? Was it the Central Bank’s monetary solution to meet its own fiscal problem of higher taxes? Was that ethically, correct? Can that be considered an abuse of power?

He may for sure have a plethora of reasons and, no doubt, will trot each one out to justify his arbitrary decision. He may play the old ‘brain drain’ song or refer to higher salaries paid by private banks. As for brain drain, do foreign organisations, banking or otherwise, keep their top posts vacant, just in case those at Central Bank who, nearing their sell by date, get the mid-career itch to risk a fling abroad for higher pay? Is the battle to the strong, the race to the swift, are top foreign jobs to Lanka’s most brainy or does chance happeneth to them all?

As for higher salaries elsewhere, hadn’t his staff opted for the security of tenure, ‘inflation-adjusted every three-year’ pensions and other benefits in lieu of higher pay and higher risks of dismissal in private sector banking?

The present over the top increments certainly could not have been as reward for high octane performance either.  While we exult with sympathetic joy, extolled in Buddhism as one of the four sublime truths, and therefore share their boundless happiness, let’s also not forget that most of those men and women who have excessively benefitted from the Governor’s indulgence, were also those who had played it safe to save their bacon and had remained silent, though duty bound to trumpet the alarm from Central Bank turrets when the nation’s monetary assets and foreign reserves were under fire from a dissolute Rajapaksa government.

The Central Bank’s announcement that they have increased their staff salaries by whopping amounts was too much to stomach for MPs on both sides of the House. They fumed with rage to see the sudden emergence of a state institute usurping their once exclusive right to be the sole arbiter of their salary hikes. Now a Parliamentary committee has demanded the Central Bank to provide a report within a week to show its legal right to make such high salary increments.

Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe deserves the utmost gratitude and all the credit for raising the nation’s shipwrecked economic vessel and, against all odds, for making it sail-worthy again. What a shame he should go and blot his copybook in this tawdry manner after all that good work he’s done.

Bandula unveils master plan to save lives on nation’s highways   MINISTER BANDULA: Nation’s safety expert Lanka’s minister of theory Bandula Gunawardane who once theorised how a family of four could comfortably exist on 2500 bucks a month, with some spare cash left for entertainment, has spent his days following Sanath Nishantha’s fatal crash last month on the expressway, trying to theoretically figure how best such crashes could be avoided in the future. In this noble and creditable endeavour, he has gone to extraordinary lengths and spared no public expense to achieve his objective of presenting a national policy and plan to save lives on the nation’s highways. First, as he told the cabinet media briefing in the week following Sanath Nishantha’s crash, he had assembled a group of experts on expressways. Then he had marshalled experts from other institutions and ensured the presence of police personnel at the meeting. Second, his impressive expert think-tank had discussed the focal issue in depth. Third, from this seminar, they had drawn the following fascinating conclusions: a) That driving at fast speeds is a major cause of accidents on the expressway. b) The risk of meeting with an accident becomes greater when overtaking slower vehicles c) The failure to wear seat belts can cause fatal injuries d) Driving under the influence of alcohol e) Failure to follow warnings on signboards f) …and, other numerous  reasons Fourth, having gained this invaluable information from his expert think-tank, he intends to: 1. Appoint a special advisory committee to advise and make recommendations to the above. 2. A minimum speed will be set though it has not been determined yet—perhaps another committee will be needed to decide what the minimum should be. 3. Gazette a new regime of laws to be enforced equally regardless of anyone’s rank, class or station in life. The police will fine all who violate these rules without fear or favour. 4. Rescue staff will be given special training how to unbuckle safety belts of accident victims. On the issue of lightless highways, he said he had been informed that the trend on the world’s highways is to keep them blacked out. ‘I have been told they are not lit. Instead, reflector signs are provided’, Bandula said. ’Only the expressway from the airport to the capital is lit up.’ Perhaps to make this noble endeavour replete, it necessitates a ministerial flying visit with other MPs in the entourage—like the ‘inspection’ MP party that was aboard the port cruise in outer harbour to probe firsthand the state of the port by night—to New York, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and other world’s hot spots to determine first hand what’s trending on the world’s highways. But his master plan to play god as traffic cop on the nation’s highways, and serving the same soup with more cooks, reheated at the people’s expense for public consumption, fails to take account of the providential fall of a sparrow, the inexplicable quirk of fate that make drivers be seized of a satanic lust to recklessly speed to keep their destiny with death at the appointed hour. No matter the earthly hell fire promised as a deterrent by gazettes, it’s best to stick fast to two old slogans, ‘Never drive fast’ and ‘Never drink and drive.’ And the chances are you’ll have enough time for reflex action to avoid accidents. However admirable Bandula’s Good Samaritan quest to save lives on highways, did we really need his expert think tank to tell us that? And what is the progress of his ambitious plans? Still on the highway to nowhere.