11th April 1999

• Stop playing political football
• What an awesome display!
• Not one of them cares
• Good old days
• I disagree with Kumbakarna
• Stop complaining
• Everything changes, even Battle of the Blues

Stop playing political football

The GMOA as always, justifies a doctors' strike by saying emergency services are maintained. They argue that the inaction of the authorities on 'greater policy matters', will result in greater damage to the health sector if they do not use the strike weapon.

Curiously, the doctors' strike resembles the strikes of so- called 'lesser' breeds' such as bus conductors. Due to their poor level of education, they cannot see that the need to strike due to 'greater policy matters' for the eventual greater good of the transport sector etc, inconveniences the public.

When doctors strike saying they maintain emergency services, they conveniently forget the thousands who are turned back not knowing their condition demands emergency attention, and that they might die quietly at home. Hence there is no record that death occurred due to a doctors' strike.

Simply stated, the State Universities do not teach responsibility and accountability. Nor do state institutions practise it. In the private sector, if you are not responsible and accountable - you are sacked.

Even more simply stated, this country needs an alternative cadre of medical professionals with a different ideal. There is a need for private medical education to create that cadre.

The GMOA and the Ministry cannot be allowed to play political football with the rights of the public any longer. Today a free media has evolved to draw them into public debate, because the public has a right to decide who should care for them, since public funds are spent to educate public servants.

The public has the right to decide if the state should fund and assist private medical colleges as well, instead of state run universities only, if the private medical schools hold the promise of educating good doctors. Or the public has a right to demand, that the government allow the setting up of private medical colleges .

The day is near when the GMOA and the Ministry will have to face the wrath of democracy.

Sarath de Zoysa
Mt. Lavinia.

What an awesome display!

Some of those present at the 51st AGM of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board entertained television viewers to an awesome display of stroke-play. Powerful hooks and pulls sent hapless opponents scurrying towards the boundary wall - some over it too! A well- timed leg-glance compelled a veteran close-in fielder to take evasive action, but in vain.

This superlative execution of strokes by hitherto unknown players would surely have warmed the hearts of cricket fans in Sri Lanka. They now feel that Sri Lanka would have an excellent chance of retaining the World Cup should the selectors include those who emerged unscathed from the fray in the firing squad for the tournament.

Should the Selection Committee and the coach study the video tapes they would seriously consider bolstering the beleaguered Sri Lanka cricket squad by mobilizing some of the players who displayed inherent talents in a forceful way at the AGM.

To some sections Cricket is now a different brawl game and only those with powerful strokes could fearlessly confront their opponents and survive.

It matters not who won or lost but how the game was played. Cricket fans in Sri Lanka rue the fact that the game has been smeared.

Errol Crutchley
Dehiwela

Not one of them cares

I am a retired engineer familiar with the drinking water supply schemes to communities and especially to Colombo. Today's water supply problems in Colombo are a result of years of bickering between the National Water Supply & Drainage Board and the Colombo Municipal Council.

It started in the early 1980s when the NWSDB acquired the entire water supply system of the CMC. No compensation was paid to CMC for any of the assets taken over. Some of them were funded by the ratepayers' money. NWSDB arranged for the CMC to operate and maintain the supply system and agreed to reimburse the CMC with costs of maintenance. The NWSDB collects the money from the consumers including for water consumed by those in CMC premises. The CMC provides unmetered water supplies to street taps and tenement gardens to help the poorer city dwellers. All these years the two parties have squabbled about payments due to each other.

The NWSDB with international funding cleaned the main water pipes in the city and replaced a few. That was over 15 years ago. Since then the NWSDB has not carried out any major rehabilitation work. The CMC does a few patch up jobs like laying lines mostly in tenement areas. As the underground pipe system is owned by the NWSDB the CMC is of the view that the major rehabilitation cannot be funded by it, as it would be like a tenant funding repairs to a house belonging to a landlord who waits for the house to collapse.

This is precisely what is happening to the water supply system of Colombo city. It is collapsing. Neither the NWSDB nor the CMC is carrying out a planned long term programme of rehabilitating and improving the system.

C. Madawala

Good old days

Thank you for publishing that beautiful tribute to P. Nadesan, an eminent public servant. Also thanks to Bradman Weerakoon, another outstanding public officer, the likes of whom are hard to come by today.

The photograph which accompanied the tribute to Nadesan is a historic one, a memento of more salubrious days when politicians could get together forgetting petty political rivalries to overcome a national problem.

The photograph shows the formidable Indian Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru, on the opposite side of the table, facing our Prime Minister, Sir John Kotelawala, along with our Leader of the Opposition, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the former PM, Dudley Senanayake, who was out of politics at the time, and M.D. Banda, a senior minister in the Kotelawala government, all honourable men, clean politicians and in whose hands the country was safe.

It is a tribute to Sir John that he took steps to include in the delegation the Leader of the Opposition and the retired Dudley, with both of whom he had personal and political "differences", to put it mildly. But it is to his eternal credit that he never used occasions to lambast his political opponents.

Old Timer
Peradeniya

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