Columns

Things are getting curiouser and curiouser as Alice, during a round trip in Wonderland, might have said. Here is a party (or is it an alliance?) that came to power promising—or was it threatening?—to change the system.

It sure has—at least one system—though I cannot remember it being listed in its political cornucopia. Well, never mind; even a hustling, bustling bunch of sahodarayas cannot engage all gears and release all brakes at the same time, although the obviously corrupt and drunken louts are crashing into cars and then abusing their victims.

Still, for all they have done, a system change nobody even thought of, certainly not the previous leaseholders of our nation when they had in their ranks men and women of dubious qualifications even holding ministerial ranks.

Hardly had the new parliament at Diyawanna Oya been washed and dried and about to sit when the Speaker quit throwing in the towel, so to say, and possibly that comical hairpiece, which is hardly suited to a tropical climate.

And why call this hullabaloo with even the Samaga Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa raising his tenor voice a few decibels, forgetting perhaps he had a National List MP named Diana Gamage to whom we will turn later?

If this koloppan was all about miris kudu being thrown at the Speaker by some cultured MPs after a few pegs of the local brew and a developing dislike for books they cannot read or understand and for cops in khaki, one could perhaps understand.

But here there was no such comic opera to titillate those in the public gallery or school kids to take home a good story.

It appears that the Assistant Secretary General of Parliament and its Information Officer, a chap named Tikiri Jayatilleke, had refused to disclose information sought by this newspaper under the Right to Information (RTI) Law passed during the yahapalana government.

In case we are accused of misquoting or distorting what the information officer (who refuses to give information, which in fact makes him somewhat redundant) said, let me cite his words:

“Educational qualifications relate to personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information or the person concerned has consented in writing to such disclosure.”

The officer also said that according to the Sri Lanka Constitution’s Article 90, no references had been made to the educational qualifications of an MP. The only qualification to be elected as an MP, according to the Constitution, is that he or she should be an elector.

Who wrote this learned piece of rubbish? I ask because I‘ve passed (not the examinations which I refuse to disclose) through the same rigmarole when I called for some information under the RTI law from the then Information Officer of the Foreign Ministry, who felt that quibbling provides a great escape route.

This refusal to disclose how educated our legislators were would have escaped the public eye, particularly of those who like to have their MPs under scrutiny for corrupt practices, which are, of course, common occurrences, had this newspaper not pursued the matter tenaciously.

It is this attempt to hide information that made me dig into it. In this process, I came across two names that exposed what seems to have been hidden by officialdom and unfortunately ignored for quite some time because of the official barriers that prevent such exposure.

One name I would not forget is that of State Minister Gamage. She is remembered for her continued criticism that our Resplendent Isle has no night entertainment to satiate those with bursting wallets and diverse desires and for her claim that she was trying to bring Walt Disney’s Disneyland to Hambantota.

Her complaint is that this Paradise falls dead at night for lack of anything to do.

Why, in heaven’s name, do we need entertainment at night when we have more than enough of it during the day? A day’s outing to the Diyawanna abode, where the greatest thinkers since Socrates gather, should surely satisfy all those tourists with jaded souls.

In an interview, DG was quick to point to her deep Buddhist roots. But I doubt she picked up her Sinhala language from dhamma classes.

But what intrigued me most in this seemingly unending self-promotion is the reference to the educational qualifications she acquired in the UK. She says she completed her Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations, studied psychology and business finance, and “completed my LLB and MBA”.

Well, she says she “completed” the LLB and MBA. Does that mean she obtained her LLB degree or just completed her studies? Is it rather strange that she does not say from which university or tertiary educational institution she obtained these qualifications?

This is not the first time she has avoided saying so. Last November, trying to find out the educational background of Minister Prasanna Ranatunga, I turned to the parliament’s Holy Grail—its website. Minister Ranatunga’s qualifications are listed as: GCE (A/L); GCE (O/L): Diploma Certificate in Leadership and Management—Orara University, Australia.

I tried to trace an Orara University in Australia, but it does not seem to exist, though there is an Orara High School somewhere around Sydney. Maybe Prasanna Ranatunga mistook a high school for a university. These things do happen, you know, especially when we have a parliament that appears to accept anything without checking its veracity.

It was then that I came across Diana Gamage’s educational achievements for the first time. They are listed as MBA, LLB (UK). That I thought was strange, as I said then in my column.

There is a country named the United Kingdom (UK), but it is no university. One could find a University of Edinburgh or a University of London or even a University of Westminster and they are educational institutions accredited to issue degrees. But who ever heard of an LLB (UK) as though the British monarchy or the prime minister goes around issuing degree certificates?

This interview gave her another opportunity to say from which university she qualified for an LLB degree, but again she skipped it. President Wickremesinghe can proudly say he holds an LLB from the University of Colombo. But not Diana Gamage. Why?

We know that if the name of a university is mentioned, one can always check with that university to ascertain relevant information. So has that game? If so, that is a good thing. Surely we had enough of bogus academics and parliament staff who tried to play gatekeepers.

(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.)