Democracy gets ambulance ride
August 5, 2015
Politicians say they spend colossal amounts of money during elections. Yes, they do! But, they won’t tell you how funds are raised and that campaign expenditure is an investment with very high returns. Else, those who rode rickety bicycles wearing flip-flops when they entered politics wouldn’t have been able to own palatial houses in the city, fleets of luxury vehicles and estates and mansions overseas and millions of dollars in offshore accounts. In fact, it is the hapless people who fund the election campaigns of most politicians who help themselves to state funds while in power and misuse public assets for campaigning. The last government was accused of using taxpayers’ money to the tune of billions of rupees for its election campaigns; it spent Rs. 600 mn on sil redi distributed among Buddhist devotees in time for the last presidential election. The public doesn’t get anything in return for their money so spent; they only get returns from the income tax department!
When the Yahapalana guys KO’d the Chinthana group on Jan. 08 in a bout which had a nail-biting finish, some people naively thought that an immediate end would be put to the widespread waste and misuse of public property, especially during elections. But, if what we have been witnessing in the run-up to the August 17 polls is anything to go by then there has been no difference. The Opposition and election monitors are protesting against the misuse of state property, mostly vehicles, for election work, while a former UPFA MP is languishing in remand prison for having allegedly misused more than 20 vehicles belonging to the Presidential Secretariat. Now, the polls monitors tell us that even a children’s hospital ambulance, of all things, has been misused for the ruling party’s election campaign!
Most of the candidates in the fray, who once pretended to be knights in shining armour on a crusade to save democracy, have proved they have no qualms about using underworld figures in their election campaigns and violent clashes are not infrequent as we saw at Kotahena on July 31. Therefore, politicians may need ambulances on standby during their election campaigns spearheaded by violent elements. But, the state-owned emergency vehicles must not be used for that purpose. Politicians have their own fleets of super luxury vehicles and let them be asked to buy their own ambulances as well.
The ambulance found at a recent ruling party campaign event in Kalutara had come all the way from the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Children’s Hospital, Peradeniya! The health authorities have told the polls monitors that the vehicle had been sent to collect some drugs, as we reported yesterday. We are intrigued. The Medical Supplies Division, which purchases, stores and distributes drugs used in government health institutions, is located in Colombo and if a hospital in Kandy had been short of life-saving medicines an ambulance should have been sent to Colombo and not to Kalutara.
The Peradeniya hospital administration has promised to probe the complaint lodged by the election monitors. It may hold an internal inquiry, but the onus is on our intrepid, indefatigable Polls Chief Mahinda Deshapriya to conduct a separate investigation and take legal action as the misuse of an ambulance for electioneering is a blatant violation of the election laws. State employees get interdicted and even sacked for lesser offences, don’t they?
Shame on those who, while extolling the virtues of good governance, are doing more of what they condemn their opponents for!
