Some thoughts on CHOGM
Editorial-November 9, 2013, 6:48 pm
By the time next Sunday comes round, CHOGM would be ending and Sri Lanka and Lankans will be catching their collective breath. There is no doubt that the government has spent a colossal amount of money in hosting this extravaganza. Whether this will be recouped with foreign investment that the Business Forum was intended to drum-up, and an enhancing of the country’s somewhat tattered image in global eyes as propagandists supporting/defending holding the event here claim, remains to be seen. There has been an effort on the part of government, which has been somewhat coy about being transparent about the actual spending, to argue that much of the cost is voted expenditure under different heads for work that must be done anyway. Road repairs and maintenance, apologists argue, has to be done in any case. Hosting the Summit only accelerated the process. Similarly, various government institutions and agencies have to buy vehicles. So these were brought in time for CHOGM and will be used by the various departments and ministries who need them and will eventually use them.
Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella went on record saying at one of his regular post-cabinet press briefings that a Head of State/Government could not be expected to ride a Toyota Corolla. Many of our BMW/Benz/Jaguar riding worthies would of course think like that. Home was never so good to these politicians, most of whom never got within sniffing distance of high-end vehicles they now swank around in, before they attained political office and boarded the gravy train. All this, of course, is paid for by the heavily burdened taxpayer. Rambukwella, perhaps, has not heard of Indian leaders who use modest vehicles to get around in and others like the former leader of Iran whose simple lifestyle attracted a lot of attention globally. As was suggested by The Island’s editor, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea for the various ministerial panjandrums to have lent their limousines for use of the CHOGM visitors during their short stay here and retrieved them after they left. That way the visitors wouldn’t have to ride Toyota Corollas and the poor taxpayer wouldn’t have to pay for expensive imports to ferry them around. It was reported some time ago that vehicles imported for the visiting dignitaries would be auctioned; then it was said they would be re-exported; finally it was said that some ministers would like the cars post-CHOGM. No prizes offered for guessing what will eventually happen.
The flurry of road repairs now acquiring added momentum saw some roads and pavement in reasonable shape ripped up and re-laid. Potted flowering plants are being buried in some places to leave the impression that they are growing out of the ground. We’ve seen some root-balled palms appearing along our roads. Hopefully all this work would be completed in time for the big show. More hopefully, no corners would have been cut and shoddy workmanship passed for payment in the eagerness to get the job done in a hurry. Should that be the case, the people will have to pay for it all over again in the not so distant future. Did we hear somebody groan? It has been heard emanating, privately of course, from some higher-ups in the councils of state that we could have done without CHOGM. The idea that we host it here was apparently first mooted by a former foreign minister, fairly well known for profligacy with the public purse, who we hope will remain confined to history. We were fortunate that we were not selected to host the Commonwealth Games, for which we made an expensive bid, and were thus spared expense we could ill-afford. We can’t say we wish the nay-sayers won the argument about whether we should or should not be allowed to host CHOGM. That would have meant that many false allegations made by diaspora-fuelled and funded elements were established as true which certainly was not the case. We hope that the majority of our people would take pride in the fact that we were able to successfully stand up to a powerful, well-funded lobby to take CHOGM away from Colombo. Those responsible for that deserve the warmest compliments.
Hosting this event naturally turned the international spotlight on us. Just yesterday the Financial Times in London had a piece on the state of press freedom in the country which was probably timed for the big show later this week. A knowledgeable reader of this assessment may well regard that the situation is not as bad as some of the government’s worst opponents would have it. Yet it harked back quite a bit to the worst of times which many readers of that respected newspaper would have long forgotten unlike those of us who lived close to the events. The government has won some plaudits for allowing the Channel Four team which had unleashed damaging propaganda about the conduct of the last stages of the war to come here for CHOGM. Given the track record of Callum Macrae and company there is little doubt that their focus will surely be on the negative. That is to be expected. Yet we are glad that Sri Lanka took the right decision to allow them in to cover an international event without let or hindrance. That is their right and we would have only shot ourselves in the foot by denying visas.
It is a pity that the authorities did not do as well in permitting the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) to have a meeting here during CHOGM week. The organization together with the Sri Lanka Bar Association planned a conference titled ``Making Commonwealth Values a Reality: the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Legal Profession.’’ Revoking visas, unless for the best reasons, having granted them with an assurance that the event will be permitted left the impression that we have something to hide. That gives the country a bad name. Certainly the way in which Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was impeached did us no credit and was not in consonance with Commonwealth values. We see that the External Affairs Ministry has dug up some so-called ``due process’’ requirements under which it is ostensibly not possible to have any conference/workshop/seminar with foreign participation here without its approval. How does that square with the freedom of association guarantee in the constitution?
