Millions passed in supplementary estimates to purchase vehicles

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Created On Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:06

Category: General

Parliament was last week informed that millions of rupees had been passed in supplementary estimates to purchase vehicles for state institutions.

Accordingly, over Rs 168 million has been made in supplementary allocations between January and April this year to purchase vehicles for state institutions.
The supplementary estimates have been passed when the Finance and Planning Ministry has announced a decision to temporarily suspend all vehicle purchases until the end of November 2013, due to requirements of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Colombo this November.
The supplementary allocations were reportedly made from the Budget Support Services and Contingency Liabilities project of the Department of National Budget, details of which were presented to Parliament this week.
The Presidential Secretariat was given Rs 25 million to purchase vehicles, while the Health Ministry and the Livestock and Rural Community Development Ministry were given around Rs 23 million each for the same purpose.
“Since the purchase of vehicles for this year and next year needs to be well coordinated, in view of their requirements for CHOGM, vehicle purchases and distribution will be temporarily suspended until the end of November 2013,” the Finance Ministry has said in a circular last month to heads of all Government institutions including ministries, Provincial Councils and other statutory bodies.
However, millions of rupees were given to various ministries for vehicle purchases in the first four months of the year, with the Economic Development Ministry getting over Rs 14 million, Defence and Urban Development over Rs 10 million and several other ministers getting around Rs 6 million each.

Filling the hotel rooms

Editorial-July 13, 2013, 6:02 pm 

The newspapers are full of reports of new hotels under construction and older properties that are being refurbished and expanded. We are often treated to lavish colour pictures of these developments and given last year’s arrivals topping one million visitors and 2.5 million targeted for 2016, there is room for optimism that all the rooms that are available already or will become available in the short-term can be filled. But there are disturbing reports that the our leisure industry is pricing itself out of the market with the rates charged by many hotels running higher than those of competing destinations like Thailand and Malaysia offering better facilities and services. So the big question is ``Are we shooting ourselves in the foot?’’ The annual report of one listed hotel-owning company recently boasted that although occupancy was down, revenue was up thanks to the higher room rates they could command.

Investment Promotion Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene last week told reporters that our hotels were over-charging and alleged that some properties had jacked up their charges as much as tenfold after the war ended in 2009 with no improvement in services. He said that the rates that are being charged were ``unrealistic’’ and opined that the country would do better by attracting more visitors with realistic pricing. The minister admitted that the government could not impose price control – although during the bleak days of the war when five-star hotel rooms were sold at 50 dollars and less the regulator imposed a minimum rate regime – and made the point that too-high prices were driving tourists to competing value-for-money destinations.

There is no doubt that what the minister said makes sound commonsense. It is something that several hoteliers themselves have expressed both in public and private. Given the massive investments that have been made and are committed to the leisure industry, there has to be a practical bias in our approach, both in policy and commercial terms, to all matters affecting tourism. We recently commented that the government, obviously for political reasons, is being coy about the casinos in the pipeline. No less that President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently boasted that his government has issued no new casino or liquor licences since it assumed office. But everybody knows that there are many casinos in operation in Colombo. Time was when it was said that these are only for foreign gamblers and locals are debarred. But it is very well known that many locals play the tables at these places and nobody attempts to stop them.

Despite its coyness about talking about casinos and distancing itself from the developing scenario, it is clear that many such gambling places are alive and kicking particularly in Colombo; and more are in the pipeline. This has been so not just yesterday and today but for a considerable period of time. The Australian gambling mogul James Packer’s plans for the so-called `mixed development’ along D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha seems well on track and last week’s unveiling of conglomerate John Keells Holding’s plans for a mega-development on the Slave Island property belonging to the group, while making no mention of a casino/casinos, obviously includes gambling in the big picture. These deals have clearly received the government’s nod. The president may hold on to his insistence that no new licences will be issued but he is not ruling out deals between existing licence-holders and new players.

We ran a research report a couple of weeks ago saying that the gambling industry could generate USD 900 million a year with just two 500-room integrated resorts (Packer and JKH?) helping to push up city room rates and adding a possible 900,000 visitors to the present one million. These are all compelling numbers and given the investment that has been or will be made in the short and medium term in the leisure industry, it is imperative that hypocritical moral compunctions are not factored into the equation. As we have often said, a country like ours targeting a vibrant tourist industry cannot have useless laws like the Poya Day ban on liquor in hotels. Certainly keeping taverns and wine stores closed on these days and stopping supermarkets selling booze is well and good. But keeping hotel bars closed encouraging tourists to drink in their rooms on `dry’ days is a useless exercise akin to the presidential promise of no new casino licences while permitting loopholes big enough for a coach and six to pass through.

The research report we cited said that the country’s tourist industry brought in about a billion US dollars on a million tourist arrivals. But it warned that a shortfall of 5,000 rooms in the city and 78,000 hotel staff as well as the lack of ancillary entertainment and shopping and dining facilities could keep visitors down. Colombo dwellers see very many restaurants opening regularly in the city and new shopping malls too are part of the emerging picture. Now that plans for two `mixed’ developments which would include casinos are firming, the entertainment aspect is getting addressed. Nevertheless it is imperative that gambling places, whether established under the Casino Business (Regulation) Act No. 17 of 2010 or the earlier Betting and Gaming Levy Act No. 40 of 1988, (since amended last April), are fairly taxed. While we need the Packers of this world as well as the JKH’s which played a big role in developing the country’s tourism industry, we don’t need sweetheart deals such as what the Australian press has attributed to the arrangement with Packer.

The UNP’s National List MP Harsha de Silva has alleged that some of the deals already reached and in the pipeline will cost the cash-strapped government whopping revenue losses. While it is a given that big investments and major players cannot be attracted without incentives, these must be kept to manageable levels. It would be useful if the government bares what the gambling industry currently brings into its coffers. Some pointed parliamentary questions would hopefully elicit the answers. The public is also entitled to know what the revenue projections are from an expanded casino industry. Mr. Dhammika Perera, as we pointed out in this column not long ago, is one of the biggest players in that industry and is the Secretary to the Transport Ministry. Mr. Thilanga Sumathipala is a government MP and his family runs a well known bookmaking business. So whether the government tries to keep these activities at an arm’s length or not, people who are close to it are very much in the game and that, surely, tells its own story.

Treasury pays Rs. 25 billion owed by SriLankan to CPC

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Created On Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:08

Category: General

The Treasury has been compelled to pay a majority portion of the payment due to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) by SriLankan Airlines.

The Treasury has paid Rs. 25 billion of SriLankan Airline’s Rs. 36 billion dues to the CPC.
CPC sources have said a Treasury bond would be given to the CPC. SriLankan would however have to pay the arrears to the Treasury.
The cash strapped SriLankan Airlines has signed a deal to buy a fleet of 10 Airbus aircraft costing more than Rs. 315 billion.
The CPC has for some time being trying to recover monies owed by SriLankan Airlines to it.
Civil Aviation Minister Priyankara Jayaratna has confirmed to the media that after several rounds of discussions, the Treasury had agreed to pay Rs. 25 billion while the national carrier would have to pay the balance Rs. 11 billion.

Dragging criminals out of politics - Editorial

SATURDAY, 13 JULY 2013 

We were both happy and sad to hear of Thursday’s landmark ruling by the Indian Supreme Court which independent democracy analysts see as a major step towards cleaning up Indian politics which is beset by corruption and crime.

Happy, because the Supreme Court has helped India to take a giant leap towards a more vibrant democracy where a criminal cannot be a politician who does not serve but abuses his power and plunders the wealth of the country and the people.

We are sad because such a major step towards cleaning up the quality of politicians and politics cannot and will not be taken in Sri Lanka because the independence of the judiciary has virtually being destroyed specially after the illegal impeachment of Chief Justice 43, Shirani Bandaranayake.

The Indian SC known to be powerfully proactive in recent years regarding matters involving social justice, has ruled that members of the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assembly members who are convicted of serious crimes will be removed from office.

It ruled that members of the Federal and Local Assemblies would be barred from elections if found guilty of offences carrying a jail term of at least two years. More than 150 members in the 543-seat lower house of the Lok Sabha are said to be facing criminal charges.

The Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watchdog, said across India there were 1,460 Lok Sabha or State Assembly members who were facing criminal charges. The figures were based on information provided by politicians to the Elections Commission before submitting themselves to the electorate. The figures show that 15 members face at least one murder charge.

 Until now Indian politicians convicted of crimes had kept their jobs while pursuing appeals which can go on for years. But India’s SC ruled that such moves would no longer be allowed, striking down Section 8(4) of the Representation of the Peoples Act. The judges made clear that disqualification from office would take place from the date of conviction.

“If a convicted person has no right to vote, he has no right to contest,” Judges A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhyay ruled.

The judgment will not affect lawmakers who have already filed appeals - just those convicted in future. India’s main parties officially welcomed the ruling, but the government said it was studying it and might appeal.

While India is taking important steps in its democratic journey to development, Sri Lanka is plagued by a crisis of the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crimes.

In recent months specially, many chairmen and other members of local councils have been charged with horrific offences while in one of the worst cases a local council member had allegedly ordered a teacher to kneel before him and her students.

Corruption and crime in Sri Lankan society and politics are worst than ever before with the enforcement of the 18th Amendment, which provides the Executive President absolute power. With a patchwork coalition put together in parliament by offering perks and privileges to some parties, the ruling UPFA of the President has absolute power in the legislature also. With media fr eedom suppressed to a large extent, an independent judiciary was the last remaining hope for democracy and refuge for the people.

But with the government acting hard and fast to destroy the independence of the judiciary and with no sign of a turnaround in that dangerous trend, Sri Lanka seems to be reaching a point of no return on the path away from democracy and entering into the perilous pits of dictatorship.

COPE(ing) With Loss Makers

• State Institutions Billions Of Rupees In Debt-Sunday, July 14, 2013

By Raisa Wickrematunge

Almost 60 institutions have recorded deficits running up to millions of rupees for the year 2011, The Sunday Leader learns.

COPE(Ing) With Loss Makers by nelvely

Foreign policy a gamble: Lanka’s future like a horse race

By Our Political Editor-Sunday, July 14, 2013

• Menon’s tough line puts ties with India at low ebb; Government has no clear-cut strategy
• TNA insists it won’t take part in the PSC, Sampanthan pushes for Justice Vigneswaran as CM candidate
• If free and fair poll is not held to the NPC, New Delhi may downgrade delegation to 
• CHOGM
• 
  

After a lengthy discussion, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and visiting Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon had still more to say to each other as they came out of a chamber at President's House. Picture courtesy Lankadeepa

President Mahinda Rajapaksa engaged in some light-hearted banter at Thursday’s weekly meeting of Cabinet ministers.
He told them he had heard that Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had told India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon during talks in Colombo this week that the United National Party (UNP) would do everything within its means to prevent any changes to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. From the account he had heard, he said, Menon had replied that “you are doing what we should do.” Rajapaksa said laughingly that if people got to know what Wickremesinghe had said, it would be counterproductive to both him and his party.

Foreign policy a gamble Lanka’s future like a horse race by nelvely

Rape: Sri Lanka’s Weapon of Genocide

July 3, 2013

By Dr. N. Malathy and Karthick RM

My fellow Tamil women
What have you done for peace in the isle?
Take off your clothes and open up your vagina
For the Sinhala warriors of the land of Buddha

- Poem by an Angry Tamil Woman

On February 26th 2013, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on sexual violence perpetrated on Tamil detainees by Sri Lankan security forces. The 140 page report, titled “We will teach you a lesson – Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces”, contains 75 cases of Tamil men and women who were tortured and sexually abused repeatedly by Sri Lankan forces. The HRW report further indicates that these cases are but examples of a much broader pattern in the abuses perpetrated by Sri Lanka’s security apparatus.

Rape Sri Lanka’s Weapon of Genocide by nelvely

War or Peace, Sri Lankan Women Struggle to Survive

By Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Jul 10 2013 (IPS) - It has been four years since the guns fell silent in Sri Lanka’s northern Vanni region, after almost three decades of ethnic violence. Unfortunately peace does not mean the end of hardship for the most vulnerable people here: the women.

Kugamathi Kulasekeran, from the village of Allankulam in northern Sri Lanka, is taking care of three boys, while looking for one missing child. Her husband went missing during the war. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

In general, life has improved for the Northern Province’s 1.2 million inhabitants. Of these, 467,000 are newly returned war displaced, most of whom fled the last bouts of fighting between the government’s armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from 2008 to 2009.

Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal frequently mentions that the previously underdeveloped Northern and Eastern Provinces have been recording double-digit growth rates since the war’s end: in 2010 and 2011, the economy of the Northern Province grew at 21 percent and 27 percent respectively, outstripping national growth rates by leagues.

But on closer inspection, it is clear that not everyone is benefiting from this growth, least of all the 40,000 families that now have single mothers at the helm. Their husbands or partners left dead or missing during the conflict, these women have now become the sole breadwinners of their households.

Researchers and experts say that two main obstacles hamper women’s attempts to reap post-war economic benefits – a development effort that is skewed towards males, and a deeply entrenched patriarchal social structure.

War or Peace, Sri Lankan Women Struggle to Survive by nelvely

Burma’s 'bin Laden of Buddhism’

The Telegraph-By Fiona MacGregor, Mandalay-13 Jul 2013-

Buddhist monk Wirathu in Yangon, Burma. The 46-year-old has been blamed for inspiring sectarian violence Photo: REUTERS

Radical buddhist nationalism is sweeping Burma, and at the forefront of the movement is a group more commonly associated with peace and tolerance: monks.

^{A woman walks past a burnt out area in Sittwe, Myanmar, where dozens of Rohingya families used to live until fires destroyed the homes (GETTY)}

Burma’s 'bin Laden of Buddhism’ by nelvely

When it comes to a country being in trouble it must spend more Merkel read the history of Hitler’s economy

SATURDAY, 13 JULY 2013 

My family is in a bit of a crisis. My earnings are cut by 25%. Writers never did earn a lot and now we have this economic catastrophe. We’ve cut our expenditures severely.

This is what happens to families in financial trouble. Cut. Common sense, eh?

But when it comes to our country being in trouble we have to be counter-intuitive. Then, a country must spend more. It has to grow faster to produce the wealth that when taxed can pay down the deficit.

When it comes to a country being in trouble it must spend more Merkel read the history of Hitler’s economy by nelvely

Vietnam Calling on Washington

Written by Khanh Vu Duc   -SATURDAY, 13 JULY 2013

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang's visit to Washington on July 25 will likely pave the way for future exchanges and developments between the two leaders

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang's visit to Washington on July 25 will likely pave the way for future exchanges and developments between the two leaders

Given that the last and only time a Vietnamese president visited the nation’s capital was in 2007 when President Nguyen Minh Triet met withy President George W. Bush, one can assume President Sang’s might signal additional visits to come.

Broad regional issues, trade, and climate change are negotiable although a major sticking point has been human rights conditions in Vietnam. On this, the US has refused to negotiate, thus preventing Vietnam from securing its much desired strategic partnership with the US without serious concessions.

An uneven playing field

Vietnam Calling on Washington by nelvely

Noam Chomsky: The Arab World And The Supernatural Power of the United States

Mohammed Attar Interviews Noam Chomsky

( July 14, 2013, Beirut, Sri Lanka Guardian) During his recent visit to Beirut, American thinker and philosopher Noam Chomsky met with a group of independent Syrian media activists, aid workers and individuals active in cultural and economic spheres. Chomsky had made it clear that he had come to listen to them; to lend an ear to their different views on the current situation in Syria.

Following the meeting I had the honour of holding an interview with him. At the outset of our discussion I stated that my motivation in talking with him was to encourage him to open up to Syrians, to address them directly with his evaluation of the situation in their country, following a series of interviews with Lebanese newspapers in which he had approached the subject through the filter of the papers’ own priorities and political biases. However Chomsky, now in his eighties, gently insisted that he was here to acquaint himself with the issue up close, rather than to offer fully formed conclusions of his own.

The discussion ranged over positions that Chomsky has subscribed to in previous interviews concerning his view of the complex situation in Syria, Hezbollah’s involvement, the American and Israeli stances towards revolutionary Syria and other related issues.

On Hezbollah’s involvement and Iranian policies

What is your view of Hezbollah’s undisguised involvement on the frontlines in Syria, in support of regime forces? You have made statements indicating that you can understand their intervention.

Noam Chomsky the Arab World and the Supernatural Power of the United States by nelvely

Appeals Chamber reverses Radovan Karadžić’s acquittal for genocide in municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Hague, 11 July 2013

Appeals Chamber reverses Radovan Karadžić’s  acquittal for genocide in municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Radovan Karadžić

The Appeals Chamber, composed of Judges Theodor Meron, presiding, Patrick Robinson, Liu Daqun, Khalida Rachid Khan, and Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, today unanimously reversed Radovan Karadžić’s acquittal for genocide in the municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was entered at the close of the Prosecution case. The Appeals Chamber remanded the matter to the Trial Chamber for further action consistent with the Appeal Judgement.

At a hearing on 28 June 2012, Trial Chamber III upheld most of the charges against Karadžić but entered a judgement of acquittal in relation to Count 1 of the Indictment, which alleges that Karadžić was responsible for genocide through his participation in a joint criminal enterprise (“JCE”) that aimed to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 31 March 1992 and 31 December 1992. The Trial Chamber found in this regard that there was “no evidence, even taken at its highest, which could be capable of supporting a conviction for genocide in the municipalities as charged under Article 4(3) of the Statute”.

Appeals Chamber reverses Radovan Karadžić’s acquittal for genocide in municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegov... by nelvely

Thousands flee DR Congo flee after Uganda's ADF raid

Nee Malisawa, mother of seven, has fled the violence with her whole family

Continue reading the main story

13 July 2013 

More than 30,000 people have fled DR Congo after a group of Ugandan rebels attacked a border town, says the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR.

The Allied Democratic Forces raided the town of Kamango on Thursday, according to the Ugandan army spokesman.

The Congolese national army has now retaken Kamango.

The ADF is based in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, where numerous armed groups have caused havoc over the past two decades.

The huge number of refugees came in so quickly that the government and aid workers are still working out what to do, says the BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga in Bundibudgyo, on the Ugandan border with the DRC.

Long wait

No food or adequate shelter has been distributed to the refugees. Many had to sleep out in the open in school compounds, or on the verandas of shops, she says.

The ADF was formed in 1996 by a puritanical Muslim sect in the Ruwenzori mountains of western Uganda.

In 1998 it increased its activities and a number of bomb blasts in markets and restaurants in Kampala were blamed on the group.

After years of sporadic raids, the Ugandan army almost destroyed the ADF's capacity in 2004 and it moved into DR Congo.

However, a United Nations report last year said the rebels had expanded their military capacity and established links with Somalia's al-Shabab militants.

'Matter for humanity that justice is done' - interview with Callum Macrae
 13 July 2013
Tamil Guardian's correspondent based in Toronto, Canada, caught up with the director of the documentaries 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' and 'No Fire Zone - the killing fields of Sri Lanka', Callum Macrae, at the sidelines of FETNA 2013, to find out how he viewed Sri Lanka's reaction to the documentaries, himself and others who are speaking out against the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamils.

'Matter for Humanity That Justice is Done' Interview With Callum Macrae by nelvely

The UPFA’s Chronic Crisis: What Next?

By Kumar David -July 14, 2013 

Prof Kumar David

It is astounding that the crisis now tearing the government apart is about the national question. All of us radicals and liberals have theorised that the Sinhala political classes would never risk the wrath of the Sinhala-Buddhistmasses by standing up for Tamil rights. What on earth is happening now? The last four weeks have been amazing. It will teach as all to stand aside and bow our heads in humility before history’s complexity and uncertainty. Frailty, sometimes thy name is history!

The crisis in the UPFA, the government, and the Cabinet, is manifest in the political domain. It gives the appearance of having burst out unexpectedly on conflicts about the NP-PC elections and 13A. This view is incomplete; the economy totters and the government’s future on current account, debt and fiscal deficit is perilous; secondly, the hens are coming to roost in the international arena; the Rajapakses have lost the plot on how to deal with India and the international community. Instability on these two fronts underpins the restlessness in the political domain; government MPs and UPFA partner parties fear that they are on a sticky wicket.                                                  Read More                                       

Karunanidhi sceptical about Sri Lanka promises

CHENNAI, July 12, 2013

On political settlement that will go beyond the 13 Amendment to the Constitution of the Island Nation

Given Sri Lanka’s track record of reneging on earlier commitments, it remains to be seen whether the country will fulfil its promises made to National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon during his recent visit to Sri Lanka, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi said on Thursday.

Referring to Mr. Menon’s assertion after his meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa that Colombo should fulfil its commitment to India and the international community regarding a political settlement that would go beyond the 13 Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, Mr. Karunanidhi expressed the hope that elections to the Northern Province would be held in an independent, fair and credible manner.

Though Sri Lanka had reportedly said that its forces would not indulge in attacks against fishermen from Tamil Nadu but would adopt a humane approach, its track record showed that it had consistently gone back on its promises. The promises made by leaders of Sri Lanka to Mr. Menon would be discussed at the forthcoming meeting of the Tamil Eelam Supporters’ Organisation to be held here on July 16, he said in a statement.

Mr. Karunanidhi reiterated his demand for firm action from the Centre to put an end to the frequent attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen and their detention by the Sri Lankan Navy as the appeals made by political parties in the State, including the letters written by the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, to the Prime Minister, did not have any impact.

He suggested that the government could facilitate migration of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to Australia, if they were confident of leading a better life Down Under. No purpose would be served by arresting and detaining them in prison whenever the refugees attempted to flee to Australia, he said. Condemning the serial blasts in Bodh Gaya, the former Chief Minister called for appropriate action against those responsible for it.

The President’s Name And Face

By Malinda Seneviratne -July 14, 2013 

Malinda Seneviratne

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that if anyone has done anything wrong that person needs to be punished, whether or not the concerned individual carries a picture of the president on his or her person.  He pointed out that under cover of his photograph there are people who produce moonshine, operate buses without permit.

It is perhaps an indication of the power vested in the office of the Executive President in the 1978 Constitution that Mahinda Rajapaksa is called upon to resolve all matters big and small.  This could also mean that relevant officials are either incompetent or scared to be found ‘erring’ in the presidential eye.  The flip side, either way, is that if the all-powerful can right wrongs (and wrong rights too!) then the shortest cut to getting anything done (right or wrong) is obtaining presidential approval or endorsement, or else feigning to have got it.

We can blame J.R. Jayewardene for this state of affairs; after all the use and abuse of name and image is not a feature particular to this regime. We saw it during the tenure of Chandrika Kumaratunga and that ofRanasinghe Premadasa as well.  If in the case of Mahinda Rajapaksa, name and image appear to have greater weight, it can be attributed to his signature achievement, that of freeing the country of terrorism.

On the other hand, the natural add-on of that victory has been enhanced in the process of stating and re-stating that obvious edge over predecessors, in and out of context, by friend and foe alike; the former for purposes of self-preservation and career-advancement and the latter in the rush to paint him into a larger-than-life monster.  Both types have carefully avoided riders, qualifiers that offer the true dimensions of the man, that which is praiseworthy and that which is not.                                   Read More