Friday, November 28, 2014

Mahinda Rajapaksa expected a coronation. Instead he faces a tricky election

“AN INVINCIBLE personality, a blessed man, he will win a big victory.” In the opinion of Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena, issued from his swish astrological headquarters in the southern port of Galle, the prospects for Sri Lanka’s president are unambiguously bright. Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa has called an election two years early, to seek an unprecedented third term. Why not? Polling will happen on January 8th, and eight is a lucky number. For Mr Rajapaksa, a Virgo, the stars are benign. Some see the president as the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy, the reincarnation of a great southern king (who also had combed-back hair and a lush moustache). He is destined to make Sri Lanka prosper, says the astrologer, and will be the best friend of Buddhism, its main religion: “There is no temple he has not visited.”

Mahinda Rajapaksa Expected a Coronation. Instead He Faces a Tricky Election by Thavam Ratna

TISL Urges Ministry Secretaries To Safeguard Public Property During Presidential Poll

28/11/2014

In a letter addressed to all secretaries of Government ministries, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) requested that adequate arrangements were made for the safe custody and preservation of public resources belonging to the Government during the presidential election.

The TISL drew the secretaries’ attention to the regulations stated in FR 128(1)(e), which states that it is the duty of the secretary and chief accounting officer of the ministry to ensure that proper arrangements are made to safeguarding public property during an election.

Following is the full text of the letter:

As the local chapter of the global movement against corruption committed to the promotion of good governance, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) will engage in election monitoring activities leading up to the forthcoming presidential election to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

TISL will specifically monitor and investigate the misuse and abuse of public property by political parties, candidates, public officials and public institutions for electioneering purposes while providing free legal assistance to citizens who report election violations and/or are victimised because of it, as well as public officials who may be victimised for carrying out election duties legitimately.

TISL has been engaged in election monitoring activities during the general elections of 2001, 2004 and 2010 and the presidential elections in 2005 and 2010. Apart from national level elections TISL also monitored the provincial elections held in 2013. Our interventions exposed blatant violations of election laws and the large scale misuse of public property and funds which resulted in massive losses to the general public.

We wish to draw your attention to the regulations stated in FR 128(1)(e), as the Secretary and Chief Accounting Officer of the Ministry it is your responsibility to ensure that adequate and proper arrangements are made for the safe custody and preservation of resources belonging to the government. We kindly request you to extend your highest cooperation in this regard.
Please note that TISL is ready to provide you and the officials attached to the ministry with free legal assistance if they are victimised for carrying out election related duties. Please feel free to visit our website www.tisrilanka.org or call us on 0114369781 for more information.

Emerging Common Opposition

By Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda -November 28, 2014

Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda

The factors which are forging unity among the opposition political parties and the civil society organizations are the immediate need to change the constitution and to abolish the Executive Presidency. This includes also ending the rule of one corrupt family. We have seen the results of the18th Amendment to the constitution. How true is Edmund Burke for us today who said, the greater the power, the more dangerous will be the abuses.

Undoubtedly, the preoccupations of the opposition movement reflect some urgent needs of the ordinary people and focusing on them is extremely important.

However it is also important to raise the question – will a mere change in the political leadership and the abolition of the Executive Presidency be a panacea to the real issues that our country is afflicted with, such as the high cost of living, the vast income differences, the national issue, threats inflicted on the natural resources, and so on? My view is that except those who perceive the current political situation in a very narrow sense, all others would agree that the people’s expectations cannot be realized just by making constitutional changes.

Certainly, such changes will bring about a temporary relief and will allow a free space necessary for short term political engagement, but in the long run such a space does not really matter. The real challenges are centered round the differences of opinion over the national issue and the economic strategy among the opposition political parties.

These are difficult questions to solve. If the leadership of the common opposition fails to come to a consensus on the national issue and the economic strategy, a breakdown of the united alliance would be inevitable. The experiences of the last 60 years of the power seeking political parties have failed to agree on a political solution to the national issue. For them the national question was only as a political tool to attract votes.
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Elections Offer Little Solace to Sri Lanka’s Poor

Sri Lanka is gripped by election fever, but the impoverished majority fears that the presidential race will not ease their financial hardships. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Analysis by Amantha Perera-Nov 29th 2014

COLOMBO, Nov 28 2014 (IPS) - Priyantha Wakvitta is used to seeing his adopted city, Colombo, transform into a landscape of bright sparkling lights and window dressing towards the end of the year.

Elections Offer Little Solace to Sri Lanka’s Poor by Thavam Ratna

Sirisena pledges to oppose war crimes investigation

By Dharisha Bastians

Will launch domestic inquiry, act according to LLRC recommendations
Promises cutouts, polythene and poster free campaign
Expresses confidence in victory at the polls, even if President Rajapaksa hangs posters on Adam’s Peak

Opposition presidential challenger Maithripala Sirisena will stand against an international investigation into allegations of war crimes committed during the final phase of the war.
Sirisena, who was addressing a press briefing yesterday, said he would launch a domestic probe if he was successful in the January presidential election. “I will not allow President Rajapaksa or the security forces to be hauled before an international war crimes court,” Sirisena told journalists.
His Government would act according to the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Sirisena said.
The LLRC has recommended credible investigations into specific incidents referred to by witnesses that testified before the Commission during the final phase of the war.
“National and religious reconciliation is crucial to harmony between communities. So we will make policy decisions on this matter,” he said.
Sirisena vowed to carry out a polythene- and poster-free campaign during the presidential election.

“I will not use cut outs or polythene. To create awareness of a rally or meeting we may use posters, otherwise there will be no polythene or posters used during this campaign,” the common candidate pledged.
A confident Opposition candidate hit back against President Rajapaksa’s propaganda blitz before campaigning officially kicks off.
“He can hang cutouts from Siripada and Sigiriya if he wants. I will still win,” he charged.
Former Fisheries Minister Rajitha Senaratne who also addressed the press briefing held at the Opposition leader’s office in Colombo claimed recent events had created a great wave of public support for the Opposition movement.
Referring to the lead story in the Ravaya newspaper, Senaratne said intelligence reports were already predicting huge victories for Sirisena in the January poll.
“People who were suppressed for so long are now speaking out. People who couldn’t understand what was happening are now understanding and aware. That is why you are getting this polling data now,” the former minister explained.
The Ravaya report said the State Intelligence Service Chief Chandra Wakishta had been removed as a result of submitting a report that predicted a Sirisena victory with 59% of the vote.
Senaratne promised more defections from the Government in the next few weeks.
“What is stopping them all right now is fear. They are all very scared. That is the only reason they are staying. So there is your greatest evidence for why the presidential system has to go,” he charged.
“The Government said there would be no more crossovers. Since they said that there have been two crossovers. So let’s wait and see what happens next week. We don’t need to advertise the numbers,” Senaratne said.
The Government is moving to suspend sittings in at least three provincial councils ahead of the vote, the former minister added.
Yesterday the UPFA Government decided to suspend sittings in the Uva PC which sits in the hill city of Badulla because it was too cold.

On backing Maithripala Sirisena: Beyond critical support and resigned endorsement

by Anonymous

- on 11/28/2014

The irony of the present political moment in Sri Lanka is that it appears the message of both Mahinda and Maithripala is essentially the same: ‘there is no substitute’. Both build their politics on how dangerous the other is, seeking to thrive on a politics of anxiety. And for these reasons alone critical democratic reasoning must be skeptical of both.

But there is more to it. Just the other day a friend of mine recalled that a professor he once knew used to say that politics is about replacing one set of problems with another rather than solving them. By all accounts the Rajapakse regime is fundamentally anti-democratic in form and substance. Maithripala promises us that he will blunt the most glaring of these formal defects. Yes, the Executive Presidency is evil but is a Prime Ministerial government buttressed by a staunchly nationalist and racist JHU and a former General whose democratic and pluralist credentials are at best deeply suspect, coordinated by a party that is in essence the progenitor of the Executive Presidency and aggressive neo-liberalisation, and presided over by someone who until a few days ago was Mahinda’s flag-bearer now backed by a bunch of fellow crossed-overs, any better for democracy?

Just ask progressive civil society in Gujarat and elsewhere in India about Modi-ification notwithstanding the active presence of all the institutional checks and balances currently lacking in Sri Lanka. Mahinda’s re-election will be a blow to democracy but his defeat at the hands of Maithripala will not signal a victory for it either. How can a political agenda that melds a JHU piqued at being upstaged by a more virulent strain of itself (the BBS), Fonseka in search of political vengeance, disgruntled SLFP-ers and sundry opportunists with a UNP whose path dependent vote bank masks its political impotence, be substantively democratic? We must recognise the character of the Maithripala bloc for what it is: differently undemocratic, elitist, and an opportunistic alliance between ultra-nationalism, ethno-religious chauvinism, frustrated political ambition, and a variety of liberal pretenses and neoliberal economic orientations. There is no way we can critically support the Maithripala campaign without becoming compromised by and complicit in it. Autonomous and progressive political forces must therefore maintain a principled distance from it.

More than ever, it is at political moments like these that progressive forces must speak out in an independent voice. Even in a context like Sri Lanka, where there is otherwise so little space for progressive independent voices, a Presidential election can and will yield space. But we can only create and claim that distinct space if we take a distinct stand that is in favour of a politics of alternatives not a politics of substitution.

Rather than hasten to rally around Maithripala, and speculate endlessly on the nature of ‘the deal’, who will jump ship, what is the going rate, and how Maithripala can be held to his word if he wins, and so on, those of us who identify with autonomous and progressive civil and political society must stake out independents fields. Ones that are not defined solely or even centrally by regime change but animated by a commitment to social and economic justice and genuine democratic transformation. We must not become complicit in reducing democratic politics to anti-Rajapakse politics.

We must go well beyond putting the repeal of the Executive Presidency along with the issues of 17th and 18th amendments, the lack of judicial independence and media freedoms on the election agenda. We must call for economic justice and democratization including issues of reducing inequalities, cutting external debt, progressive tax reform, checking the power of big capital and finance, and protecting labour rights; a comprehensive reform of land rights to end land grabbing and forced evictions; demilitarizing governance especially but not only in the North and East; substantive political measures towards post-war reconciliation and justice; safeguarding minority rights and reigning in extremist forces like the BBS; strengthening social infrastructure and entitlements; instituting an independent civil service and measures such as freedom of information, and so on.

Yes, this is a democratic rights agenda that goes well beyond the impending election. The question is not whether there are any takers for it or space for such an agenda but rather whether it is ethical for those of us committed to social justice and genuine political and economic democracy to dedicate ourselves to anything less.

We must rescue democratic visions from the narrow electoral bandwidth, anti- and pro- Mahinda, to which they are presently confined. We should instead be going out to the voters and advancing an agenda for a democratic, pluralist, inclusive, and just Sri Lanka. The focus must not be on supporting Maithripala, critically or otherwise, but on how we can engage the public and electorate at large with a deeper and substantive political agenda. The biggest danger to our democratic vision and commitment is not another Rajapakse victory but rushing to support the Maithripala bandwagon because we underestimate our convictions, relevance, resilience, imagination and ability to act autonomously and with integrity despite our many limitations, fears, confusions, and contradictions. We can and must act so.

Indeed, a Maithripala victory, even if realized, is going to be a false dawn, one that will bring fresh impediments to democratization. Long have we waited for democratization from above, now is a time better than ever to recommit to democratization from below, to building a new social and political ethos and setting a foundation for a real alternative democratic political discourse and agenda. Our struggle and striving to do so, even if not immediately effective, is likely to be more credible, leave a stronger footprint and foundation for a democratic future than supporting Maithripala ever will.

Finally, it is crucial to differentiate between what we do on election day when confronted with a ballot list and what we do in the days before (and indeed after). Will we allow the logic of the former to subsume the latter? Indeed, giving Maithripala a vote—only to help dislodge the Rajapakses—and endorsing Maithripala politically (critically or otherwise) are in fact two different things. To reduce this political moment only to the former, assuming there is nothing else and no other way but to do the latter, and failing to articulate and work to advance a substantive alternative political, social and economic justice agenda is tantamount to choosing the easy way out. Before each of us who may identify as part of this autonomous and progressive civil and political society is the challenge of not letting our electoral calculus limit our political imagination and action.

What System Should Rule?: Amassing People’s Power To Restore Democracy In Sri Lanka

By Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon -November 28, 2014

Athula Samarakoon

What is the basic question of politics at the national level today? Should we agree that it is a question about the type of person(s) who should rule? Or the type of the system which we should create if we agree that the current system is so corrupt and looks so tyrannical. In other words, can we rationally think that the executive powers vested in Presidency will be used wisely by ‘a wise man to come’? After all, are all our people wise enough to elect such a wise man, if he is around us? Therefore the basic question of politics, today, would be about the system that should rule? And not ‘who should or would rule?’ On the other hand, how possible it is for us to reform this rotten system, which can easily corrupt ‘wise people into despots’, unless we can guarantee peoples active participation which should be defined something more than the normal voting behaviour of them aimed only at a replacement of leaders. For a system change a majority is not enough but the majority’s victory has to accompany a large scale people’s movement that can struggle for reforms with the people and against all other elements that will possibly stop at the green light of power, or against the forces that will come to thwart the struggle for reforms.

Ideally, the rulers should get into institutions which they themselves cannot define according to their whims and fancies. We have so far failed to create such a system which is well balanced at all levels of the government, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Today, Sri Lanka’s democracy cannot properly function at all, at all these three levels, because the Presidency is not balanced and is the single most powerful institution, while other institutions remain basically impotent. The challenge before us therefore is not only about how or with what forces we can defeat a regime which has already turned despotic due to the system’s loopholes, but turning the majority who would elect the alternative President into a large scale mass movement for reforms; because such a movement has just begun to grow and has a long way to go. The ultimate goal is not a victory for the common candidate, but victory for a common aspiration, a better system and corruption free government.

28/11/2014

A civic group ‘Democracy Sri Lanka ‘ has put tether few mage corruption deals that has taken place under the Rajapaksa rule.This is just a tip of the iceberg of rampant corruption that has taken place in Sri Lanka during the recent yeas.

1. The cost per kilometer of the Outer Circular Highway from Kadawatha to Kerawalapitiya financed by China is US$ 56 million(Rs.7.3billion) This cost is three times higher than the Kottawa Kaduwela extension of the Southern Highway financed by Japan ,which is Rs.2.4 billion per kilometer.

2. The cost per kilometer of Extension of the Southern Highway from Mattala to Hambantota will cost Rs.2.14billion, whereas per kilometer cost of the Southern Highway cost only Rs.975millions.

3. Bid price of A9 road was Rs.140 million per kilometer when the departmental estimate for an A class road was Rs. 20million.

4. Construction of the Norachchole Coal Power Project was awarded to a well established Chinese contractor at US$280 million in 2005 by the previous regime. Soon after present regime came into power it cancelled the contract and awarded it to another inexperienced Chinese firm at US$520 million-almost double the previous price.

5. On a dispute between Essential Services Commissioner and Asset Maritime(Pvt) Ltd arbitrator-a retired High Court Judge awarded Rs.600,000 as compensation to the company. A Committee appointed by the President on the intervention of the First Lady awarded Rs.180 million to this company owned by Dhammika Perera and Nishantha Wickramasinghe- latter being a brother of First Lady.

6. Due to the ill conceived Hedging deal of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation headed by Asantha de Mel ( a person connected to the political establishment) lost Rs. 230 billion in2007.. No one has been held accountable for fr huge loss of public funds.

7. Due to the mismanagement of Chairman Nishantha wickramasinghe, who is First Lady’s brother, Sri Lankan Airlines has lost around Rs.70 billion.!

8. Mihin Air managed by Sajin Vaas Gunawardene lost Rs.1.455 billion in 2011 and in2012 the Government invested Rs.3004 billion as capital in this loss-making venture to support a close political ally..
Compiled by Democracy Sri Lanka

Academics of universities called for a meeting’ at Temple Trees

Friday, 28 November 2014

FUTA says that the Ministry of Higher Education and the UGC have issued invitations to all academics of state universities to attend a ‘Progress Review Meeting’ at Temple Trees on the 1st of December 2014 at 3.30 pm'

FUTA further says that there is no details of this ‘Progress Review Meeting’ which have been provided.

Full text of statement of FUTA as follows

We find the timing of such meetings extremely questionable. Previously too, a meeting was held in 2010, just prior to the Presidential Election. We consider such initiatives blatant attempts to politicise the administration of the higher education sector. If the President was serious about conducting a progress review of the higher education sector, this is certainly not the way to set about it. In fact, FUTA has been agitating since 2012 for the establishment of a Presidential Commission to review the existing higher education sector and to propose higher education policy. We find it extremely curious that such initiatives are ignored and instead,
meetings of this nature are hurriedly called only once an election has been announced. Suspicions among the academic community that such meetings are simply part of the President’s election propaganda are therefore justifiable.

Of course the President has the right to engage in election propaganda and to campaign. Academics also have the right to express their political views, to advocate on behalf of their political ideologies and to even campaign on behalf of their political choices. However, the use of public funds, and public office Election
Commissioner to ensure that election laws are upheld by all political parties and candidates.

We are confident that our academic community which has been fighting to preserve university autonomy and against politicisation of the higher education sector will take the correct decision with regard to this invitation to a so called ‘Progress Review Meeting’. It has been brought to our notice that certain Vice- Chancellors are exerting pressure on academics to attend this meeting and we vehemently condemn such efforts. The academic community must maintain academic freedom and university autonomy at all times. The integrity of our profession and the higher education sector must not be compromised.

OPEN AND SHUT: ANOTHER LETTER TO OUR MAJESTY

by The Silva
- on 11/28/2014

Your Highness,

I am writing to be Informing you that my wife is leaving home today, threatening to be joining the Opposition. Please do not be thinking she is traitor. She is still very much devoted to you and is thinking the Opposition is way too common for the liking of even very common people like ourselves. It is just that she is hearing from some rumouring peoples that if someone is threatening to be going and joining the Opposition Your Majesty is offering a large and attractive inducement for that person to be staying firmly in position. Therefore she is also declaring the intention to be to be joining the Opposition because if she can be getting even a few thousand rupees that is something these days. (And if this is true and factual, then I am also not really minding joining the Opposition for even short time. It is very difficult for even one person to be living on two people’s salaries but inducements for two people might be enough for whole family and more).

I am knowing that some nasty people are saying that you are offering the bribes to the people. But I am wanting to be assuring you that I and millions of other peoples are understanding perfectly what you are doing. Even little children are knowing that after your glorious victory over the most despicable Prabhakaran you are abolishing the bribery in the country, just like you are abolishing the terrorism (and a few other things). What we are having in the country today is not bribery but the offering of inducement, encouragement and the relief. Like the budget. Some people are calling it big bribe but it is nothing more than the big relief. For everybody. Whole country is now getting used to idea of getting and giving the inducement and the relief instead of the bribe. People who are previously asking the official if he is liking some money under the table are now simply asking if he is wanting some relief under the table. Many people, ministers, MPs, officials, even policemen are used to getting their relief and inducement this way now. And this is all that you are offering to the peoples who are threatening to be leaving government. Little inducement to be remaining faithful. Nothing more.

We are fully aware and conscious also that the inducements are going hand in hand with the filing system. A file in the modern Sri Lanka is very much like album but with small difference. In album we are only recording happy memory, whereas in the file there are mostly naughty memories. These days in Sri Lanka everybody is having such a file on somebody. The boss is having the file on the worker, worker having the file on the boss, doctor on the patient and patient on the doctor and the nurse. Sometimes children are having files on the father and the father is having the file on children and mother also. Our Majesty is having the file on everybody, even his own family so that you can be fully and totally aware of the naughty things every subject is doing. Even baby Namal is having big file because he is sometimes naughty baby. Some peoples are calling it the rank and file system. Bigger the rank, thicker the file. And when inducement is failing, file is opening. This is giving new meaning to the expression ‘open and shut case’. File open, mouth shut!

This is why some peoples are wondering why you are still not opening the My-three’s file. The nasty ones are saying this is because My-three is also having Your Majesty’s file. The really nasty ones are even saying My-three is holding Your three very firmly and strongly and because of this you are suffering great discomfort to the body and the mind. I am thinking this cannot be true because considering Your Majesty’s achievements in the past five years alone one file is never going to be enough. You are needing something like the filing cabinet or maybe even the whole archive. But no one is seeing the My-three leaving government with cabinet. Maybe files are coming when the whole cabinet is also leaving. But I can be speaking only on what is happening now. Not the hereafter. Therefore, I am thinking, for the moment, My-three’s file is shut because Your Majesty is waiting to be seeing if he is wanting other inducement also. When Your Majesty is sure and certain that no other inducement is wanting file will be coming out. Open and shut.

All I am asking is to be considering my wife’s request and to be giving her the biggest inducement you can be offering to common peoples like ourselves. Even the inducement of a few thousand rupees is great relief at this moment. There is absolutely no need to be opening our files. We are people of very small rank and file.

The vindictive peoples in the Tamil diaspora are saying that they are also having files on you and they are threatening to be showing them to the Hague people if Your Majesty is defeated. Your Majesty must be laughing from the royal backside when you are hearing this because I am sure you are already having the files on the Hague people also. They are never going to be touching you as long as they are knowing that. Another open and shut case.

I am also knowing that a very, very small minority of the people are wondering if this is good way to be running country. But it is ridiculous idea. In many other more advanced countries (which will not be for very long because Sri Lanka is sure to be overtaking them very soon) they are practising similar system. When peoples are complaining about something, government is giving the inducement, called the concession. But if complaining too much, then giving the capsicum spray, called the repression. In the Sri Lanka under the glorious reign of Your Majesty it is far more sophisticated and civiliased. Complaining? Have the inducement. Take the relief. Complaining more?? File open, mouth shut!

And in the very rare case that Your Majesty is losing the election to My-three and his band of traitors you can still be relying on the same system to be avoiding somebody checking your filing cabinet. Just be giving the call to the Obama or any other imperialistic leader and be telling them you are having all their files. Unless some nice little cottage is prepared for you and your family’s retirement in some corner of the imperialistic world, all their files are going to be opened and never shut. That is never going to be as good as lording it over the rank and file in the Wonder of the Asia but I am sure it is going be much better than wandering aimlessly in the Asia wondering when someone is going to be catching you and dragging you to be reviewing your files.

Your most humble and unbelievably faithful servant,

The Silva

PS: If you are seeing my wife to be giving inducement can you please be telling her to be coming home soon. I am hungry. If she is not coming soon with or without inducement I am going to be opening her file and distributing the contents all over the neighbourhood.

Premawathie Manamperi brutally killed, buried alive

BY Elmo Gooneratne-2014-11-28

Southern Province Beauty Queen, Premawathie Manamperi was brutally killed and buried alive. She was also raped. An informant in the area had told the Army that Premawathie was the JVP leader in the area. The informant told this to Lieutenant Wijesooriya who got Premawathie down. The rest happened. The Bandaranaike's are a special lot. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was killed by a Buddhist monk Somarama for business and political reasons.
Premawathie Manamperi Brutally Killed, Buried Alive by Thavam Ratna

Bloated fleas

Editorial-November 27, 2014

It is not only in fables that animals talk. In politics, too, they do. We saw one of them in action near the Colombo Magistrate Court the other day. However, this comment is not about barking dogs or braying donkeys in the garb of politicos but political parasites.

A ministerial potentate is reported to have put forward an absurd argument; corruption is something common in this country and if the present set of politicians in power who have made enough money is voted out the people will be the losers. For, the members of the new dispensation will go hell for leather to amass wealth at their expense, he has said.

In an Aesopian fable a fox stuck in a gully in a stream says something similar. Having failed to extricate itself and resigned itself to its fate, it turns down an offer by a smaller animal to remove the bloated fleas it is covered with. "Those parasites are now replete and if they are removed another swarm will descend on me," says the fox.

The poor fox represents the ordinary people and the politicians in power are the bloodsuckers. Does this mean the corrupt politicians who plunder public wealth for years and become filthy rich should be allowed to remain in power forever lest another set of corrupt dregs should grab state power, make up for lost time? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’! However, the solution to the problem is to launch a truly national campaign to rid the country of corruption at all levels of government as well as the public service. A tall order, no doubt, but unless the cancer of corruption which has eaten into the vitals of society is removed as a national priority progress will continue to elude us.

Sri Lanka’s campaign against corruption has been in the doldrums because it is highly politicized—nay, it has been reduced to a mere political slogan. Entrusting politicians with the task of fighting corruption is tantamount to enlisting the support of criminals to maintain law and order!

If an anti-corruption drive is to reach fruition it needs to be conducted as a social movement to heighten the awareness of the public of their rights and the benefits of good governance and mobilise the populace.

India has succeeded in doing so to some extent. Such a movement should be independent of the private sector as well because most of the captains of industry who pretend to be knights of the Garter on a mission to slay the dragon of corruption are themselves responsible for corruption in the state sector. The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has shed lights on some of those rackets including multi-million-dollar divestiture programmes.

In 1994, political parties represented in Parliament including the SLFP and the UNP voted unanimously and unflinchingly to strip the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) of powers to initiate its own probes without waiting for complaints. Politicians make common cause when their interests are threatened. So much for their contribution to the country’s anti-corruption drive!

During elections politicians vow to eliminate corruption and vilify their rivals. Let them be urged to put their own house in order before being critical of others. They ought to declare the amounts of funds they raise for their polls campaigns and reveal the sources of funding so that the people will know who is backing them. Transparency is an effective antidote to corruption.

CPA Remains Silent: Genuine Intellectuals Should Stay Away From These Corrupted NGOs: Dr Amarakeerthi

November 28, 2014

“It has been months now but the Centre of Policy Alternatives (CPA) has chosen to remain silent on Colombo Telegraph’s allegation that the CPA has been less than transparent in its financial activities attracted the attention of many since it first surfaced says Dr. Liyanage Amarakeerthi.

Dr. Liyanage Amarakeerthi

On October 10th Colombo Telegraph exposed various financial malpractices in the CPA. The CPA, in its official website, referring to this exposé, on the same day announced that its Executive Director, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu was away and that a response would be given ‘in two weeks’. Dr Saravanamuttu returned to Sri Lanka on the 17th. The self-imposed deadline expired on 24th October.

On October 10th, based on CPA documents in our possession, Colombo Telegraph accused the CPA of billing for un-held workshops, engaging in double billing,’ i.e getting grants from two donors to do the same task and duplicating receipts, hotel bills and other bills to submit to donors (perhaps even submitting same bills to multiple donors), and hoodwinking donors by filing expenses under safe cost columns. Colombo Telegraph first asked the CPA to respond to certain questions based on our investigations on 8th of June, 2014.

Dr. Liyanage Amarakeerthi, Senior Lecturer at University of Peradeniya said today that the fact that some NGO big shots live luxurious is quite well-known and that fact alone has distanced many important public intellectuals from NGOs. The modus operandi of these NGOs includes the concepts such as ‘transparency’, ‘accountability’, ‘financial ethics’ and the like. But the NGOs seem to ignore those very concepts when they are used against themselves.

He said; there are NGOs doing some important work in the country. That work needs to continue. Arguably, the NGOs indirectly helped the Sri Lankan state during war years by taking care of many social issues while the state was busy waging war. Even during these ‘peace years’ the NGOs are taking upon themselves many tasks to which the state could have ideally attended. There are some NGOs that focus on critical civil society activities geared towards empowering citizens. For these very reasons, it is important that Sri Lankan citizens expect these NGOs to practice what they preach.

“Given this background the CPA’s freezing into silence is puzzling indeed. Big shots in the government spend luxurious lives that they would not have even imagined a few years ago. The prices of the president’s wristwatch, of his son’s cars, are rightfully questioned. Those factors are already causing the downfall of the regime. The shades of defeat are already visible on the face of the corrupted patriarch. It is also important that the citizens have access to the information of about the funding these NGO vallahs get in our name, the people.

“It is also important for genuine public intellectuals to distance themselves from these corrupted NGOs and work with people at the grassroots level to rebuild a tradition of civil activism. The re-discovery of genuine (unpaid) activism and participation in governance needs to be built into the movement of comment candidate and other social moments.”

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Will arrange bail for your boy on Friday, president had told Mervyn!

Friday, 28 November 2014

“Because my boy was not given bail on Tuesday, with great pain of mind, I called the president in Kathmandu. When I told him about my misery, he asked me when the case would be called next. I said Friday. He said, OK Mervyn, you go to court on Friday. I will arrange bail for the boy. It was done as he said. Today, the boy got bail. Don’t you go to publish these in websites. The president is a leader who does what he says, correct or wrong. When did Ranil and Mangala, whom you support, help people like that?” public relations minister Mervyn Silva gleefully told an editorial member of ‘Lanka News Web.’

“If such a favour was asked from Ranil or Mangala, they would have uttered some bailas like, ‘we respect the independence of the judiciary. We protect the rule of law.’ If there was rule of law, my boy would have remained behind bars forever. Do you understand the value of the executive presidency now?” he said further.

When asked, as to whether he would join the opposition since bail was granted, he said, “I can remain in the government and do a good service for the opposition. Therefore, I changed my decision. If there is a change in government, defend me.”