Customs Officials Demand Ransom Of Rs.120 Million – Custom Chief Wijeweera Under Fire

April 6, 2015 

Appalling details of a daylight robbery committed by a group of Customs Officers under the blessings of the Customs Chief Jagath Wijeweera, where two suspects were coerced into paying a ransom worth Rs. 120 million to prevent being detained in remand custody, has now come to light, Colombo Telegraph can exclusively reveal today.

DGC Jagath Wijeweera

The Colombo Chief Magistrate was informed that DGC Wijeweera has permitted the said group of officers to by-pass the Director of Customs in charge of the ICT Directorate to which, the said group of officers in question are attached and the Additional Director General of Customs under whose purview lies the ICT Directorate, to abuse the Customs law as they please to claim Rs. 40 million of misappropriate money among each of them. These officers have been permitted to claim this ill-gotten wealth through a ransom worth Rs. 120 million paid by two suspects in remand custody, who had been threatened with an extension of their duration in remand prison if they failed to make the demanded payment.

It has been reported to the Magistrate that the DGC has colluded with these officers to deceive the Colombo Chief Magistrate in order to keep the two suspects in the remand custody with a plan to induce them to pay the said sum of Rs. 120 million as a penalty.

This case has now been reported to the Bribery and Corruption Commission to be investigated as the officers involved have abused the law to misappropriate about Rs. 40 million each – which should have been credited to the revenue according to the law – thereby committing a violation of Secction 70 of the Bribery Act.

According to the facts submitted in the relevant customs case (ICT/INV/014/2015) two suspects named M H H Anwar and M I A Siddick of Janatha Garments have been produced before the Chief Magistrate Court by the Customs Officers on 13th March 2015. They have alleged that the company in question has abused BOI concessions to import a large volume of fabric (over Rs. 100 million during the first three months of 2015 alone) and released them to the local market, evading the payment of customs levies. The officers have therefore sought Court’s permission to keep the suspects in the remand custody to conduct a ‘proper investigation’.

However, later it had been revealed in Court that the process adopted by the said group of officers was absolutely unlawful and the relevant Customs Regulation issued by the Director General of Customs (DGC) with the concurrence of the Attorney General was produced before the Chief Magistrate. The said Directive issued under Section 127A of the Customs Ordinance (the law that permits suspects to be kept in remand Custody) makes it mandatory for the Head of the respective Directorate to furnish an explicit report to the DGC, who himself should form an opinion and inform the Magistrate, relating on the nature of offence and the involvement of the persons requested to be kept in the remand custody for ‘proper investigation’.

However it has now been revealed that this legal requirement has been completely defied by the officers in question, under the full knowledge of DGC Wijeweera, who has permitted the officers themselves- who also have a financial interest in the case due to the cash reward they are eyeing – to abuse the law as they please and to keep the suspects in the remand custody for the ‘improper purpose of demanding a ransom of Rs. 120 million. This gross abuse has now been reported to the Chief Magistrate, seeking strong case against the Customs Officers for abuse of legal process to facilitate the collection of ransom. It has also been reported to the Corruption Commission for proper investigation.

According to the report sent to the Corruption Commission, suspects involved in this case have been produced before the Court on 13th March 2015 with a request made by the officers themselves (not by the DGC as law required) to keep them in the remand Custody for ‘proper investigation’. Then, on 19th March 2015, in response to a request made by the officers, Court has directed the Prison authorities to produce the two suspects before the Customs ‘for the purpose of recording further statements’.

However, it is reported that the head of the Customs Investigations team, Deputy Director of Customs, A Lankadeva, has abused the law that permitted Customs to keep the two suspects in the remand custody, to coerce the suspects to pay a penalty of Rs. 60 million within a month and thereafter to pay another Rs. 60 million if the suspects wish to be released from the remand custody. Then he himself has conducted the formal customs inquiry against the two suspects on 19th March 2015, which is forbidden by law. Thereafter both suspects have been returned to the custody of the Colombo remand prison.

The following day (20th March 2015) these officers have filed another false report before the Colombo Magistrate Court, informing the ‘customs investigation has been completed and therefore to release the suspects’, which is another absolutely false statement. This report has not mentioned anything concerning the formal customs inquiry conducted by the head of the investigations A Lankadeva, whilst the two suspects were kept in the remand custody, which is completely forbidden by law. In the report sent to Corruption Commission, it is also noted that conducting of a formal Customs Inquiry by the officer who conducted the investigation is also an improper act, which is not permitted by law. In the report it is also alleged that the said officer himself share one third of the penalty recovered from the suspects as ‘cash rewards’ with the other officers, whereas the law requires that in all cases where there is an evasion of payment of fiscal levies, to recover the fiscal levy element unpaid in the first place and to credit the same to the revenue.

Related posts;

Deal Or No Deal: Customs Chief Wijeweera In A Rs.100 Million Defraud Deal?

Exposed: Rajapaksa’s Blood Ivory Robbery: Justice Rohini Lies Internationally

Yoshitha’s course fee borne by Ukraine Marsh

Monday, 06 April 2015

It is a punishable offence under the bribery or corruption investigation act that the former president’s son, Navy Lt. Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s one year course fee at the National University of Defence Academy of Ukraine had been borne by Ukraine Marsh, the controversial Ukrainian MiG supplier.

Yoshitha followed the master’s diploma at the academy from 29 October 2009 to 31 August 2010. The coordinator for that was Udayanga Weeratunga, Yoshitha’s uncle and the then ambassador in Russia as well as the Sri Lankan agent for Ukraine Marsh. During that period, the Sri Lankan government had paid an allowance, transport expenses and a telephone allowance for Yoshitha.

According to sources, Ukraine Marsh had even borne the transport expenses of Yoshitha. The financial fraud investigation division of the police is investigating the MiG deal in 2005, and has recorded a statement from the then Air Force commander Air Marshal Roshan Goonatilake. He has said that the entire deal was done by the defence ministry. The AF had only checked the technical suitability of the aircraft and issue certificates, he has said.

Kotakethana mysteries resume - After woman goes missing

BY CASSENDRA DOOLE AND LANKESH GOONERATNE

The Kahawatte mystery murders seem to be continuing as a woman 39-years-old, a mother of three children was reported missing in the Kotakethana area, Kahawatte yesterday (5), the Police Media Unit told Ceylon Today.
According to the Police the woman disappeared at around 1:00 a.m. The Police suspect that the woman has been murdered and the body has been hidden. Police said that 17 women have been murdered before yesterday's incident. Fifteen of these murders have occurred between 2008 and 2011.

The victim is a resident of 94 B in the Kotakethana area in Kahawatte. The Police had been alerted by the woman's husband who had arrived home and found his wife missing.
The Police further mentioned the room the victim had been sleeping in was covered in bloodstains when the Police arrived on the scene.

According to investigations, by Police it has been revealed that the back door of the house was opened and a bloodstain was seen in the kitchen area as well.
A search operation is currently being carried out by the Police and the special task force (STF) to search for the missing woman.
Kahawatta in the Ratnapura District repeatedly hit the headlines a couple of years back due to a series of murders that began in 2008 and continued for several years.
After the first murder on 21 July 2008, the next four years were somewhat dark and gloomy due to one murder or the other cropping up every now and then.

The Kahawatta murders were such that, whispers of a 'serial killer' on the loose was also heard every now and then.
The victims of the previous murders were all women living in houses where there were no men and most of them were raped before or after they were killed. In some instances, the killers even burned the bodies.

The Kahawatta killings started on July 21, 2008 and the first victim was 56-year-old Sellaiya Maria in Kotakethana, Opathawatta area. She was strangled to death. The same year on November 19, 52-year-old U. Ariyawathie was killed in a similar manner. More women were killed in 2010 and 2011. At the beginning of 2012, 52-year-old Nayana Nilmini and her daughter, Kavindya Chathurangani, were killed in what was reported as the first double murder in the area. This was followed by two more double murders, taking the number of women killed since 2008 to 14. The 15th victim was a 66-year-old woman. The murders seemed to come to a complete halt after the police arrested the former Godakawela UPFA Pradeshiya Sabha member, L. H. Dharmasiri, his brother and two other people in connection with the double murders.
The question now is have they really stopped? Or will the reign of terror in Kahawatta rear its ugly head once more?

Exclusive: Rwanda Revisited

Former President Clinton said he never knew the extent of suffering during Rwanda’s genocide. But America’s diplomats on the ground knew exactly what was happening — and they told Washington. 

BY COLUM LYNCH-APRIL 5, 2015

On  March 25, 1998, President Bill Clinton expressed regret for failing to halt genocide in Rwanda, saying that he didn’t “fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which [Rwandans] were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.”
Exclusive Rwanda Revisited by Thavam Ratna

Kenya launches air strikes against al-Shabaab camps in Somalia

Military says jets have bombed two camps in border region in response to massacre of students

 Kenyan soldiers arrive at a hospital in Garissa to escort the bodies of the attackers to be put on public view Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Murithi Mutiga in Nairobi-Monday 6 April 2015

Kenyan officials said that fighter jets have bombed two al-Shabaab camps in southern Somalia, as more details emerged of the model-student-turned-jihadi who took part in a massacre that left 148 dead.

In the first major military response to last week’s attack by the militant group on GarissaUniversity, jets hit what were described as al-Shabaab camps in two villages in the Gedo region of southern Somalia, close to the border with Kenya.

“We targeted the two areas because according to information we have, those [al Shabaab] fellows are coming from there to attack Kenya,” a military spokesman told Reuters.

The bombings, which followed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s promise to retaliate in “the severest way possible” to the attack, in which dozens of cowering students were lined up and shot in the head at close range, came as people digested the shock identity of one of the gunmen.

Abdirahim Mohamed Abdullahi – whose name was first revealed by the Kenyan journalist Yassin Juma on his blog and later confirmed by Kenyan authorities – was described by friends as a “brilliant, upcoming lawyer” and an A-grade student who took a mysterious turn to radical Islam at some point between school and university.

Abdullahi was the son of a chief – a Kenyan government official whose job includes identifying criminals to the police and arbitrating in local disputes.

Friends described the gunman, who had secured an internship at a major bank that recruits many Muslim graduates, as a bright student who began to show signs of radicalisation during his college studies, even as he gave motivational lectures to high-school pupils.

“He used to make the students laugh with his words, quoting wise people and motivate them to do the best they can. He was the perfect lawyer. He had his way with people,” one former student said.

One student described a conversation with Abdullahi and another of his former schoolmates Mohamed Atom, who is the only Kenyan known to have joined Islamic State (Isis) in Syria, after one of their motivational lectures.

 Medical staff console a woman after she viewed the body of a relative killed in the attack at Garissa University. Photograph: Khalil Senosi/AP

He told the Sahan Journal website that the lawyer-turned-jihadi and his friend spoke of the futility of western education and repeatedly brought up the question of dying to advance the cause of religion.

“After the lecture, they kept talking about how secular education was not useful,” said a previous student who engaged him afterwards. “He kept saying, ‘we need to strengthen our connection with Allah. It is the knowledge of Islam that will only be useful to you today and in the hereafter.’”

Alarmed by the prospect of more Kenyans returning from jihadi training camps to take part in terror atrocities, the authorities urged relatives whose children had disappeared to come forward.

“It is indeed very necessary and critical that parents whose children go missing or show tendencies of having been exposed to violent extremism report to authorities to help prevent further escalation of radicalisation”, Mwenda Njoka, an interior ministry, told the Standard newspaper.

Kenya began the second of three days of national mourning amid a debate about the country’s involvement in a UN-backed, African Union troop mission to tackle al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Although the Kenyan military has enjoyed considerable success on the battlefield, taking few casualties and pushing the terror group from most populated centres in southern Somalia, the mission has come at the cost of more than 400 Kenyan lives.

Al-Shabaab, which at one point controlled most of Somalia, has lost swaths of territory in recent years but diplomats have repeatedly warned this has not diminished its ability to stage guerrilla-style attacks at home and abroad.

It has threatened to turn Kenyan cities “red with blood” and police have stepped up security at shopping malls and public buildings in the capital, Nairobi, and in the eastern coastal region, which is popular with tourists and has been prone to attacks.

US rejects Netanyahu’s demand for Iranian 

recognition of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks out against a nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers,

 April 03, 2015. (Photo credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

State Department says agreement with Tehran is ‘only about nuclear issue’. White House bids to prevent congressional interference

BY ITAMAR SHARON AND AP-April 4, 2015

The US State Department rejected over the weekend Israel’s demand that any final deal with Iran on its nuclear program include recognition of Israel’s right to exist, saying that was not the issue at hand

“This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday night, according to Fox News. “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.”

Meanwhile the New York Times reported that the White House was already making intense efforts to sell the emerging deal to a reluctant Congress, in order to prevent legislators from blocking the accord.

US Rejects Netanyahu’s Demand for Iranian by Thavam Ratna

Palestinian Authority rejects Israel tax transfer

President Abbas has demanded the tax revenues in full 

6 April 2015

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says he has refused to accept hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenues unfrozen by Israel.

Mr Abbas says he returned the money because Israel deducted a third to cover unpaid Palestinian utility debts.

He has threatened to take Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) unless the full amount is released.

Israel collects taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but suspended payments in January.

It froze the transfers in protest at the Palestinians joining the ICC.

Palestinian membership began on 1 April, giving them the option to pursue Israel for alleged war crimes.

Israel says it has deducted the cost of unpaid services provided to the Palestinian population, including electricity, water and hospital bills.

The government made the decision to restart payments two weeks ago but warned at the time that it would make deductions from the transfer.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time Israel would resume payments partly out of “humanitarian considerations”, adding the “deteriorating situation in the Middle East” and rise of extremists required him to “act responsibly and judiciously”.

ICC threat

Speaking at a rally in Ramallah, President Abbas demanded the tax revenues in full.

"We are returning the money. Either they give it to us in full or we go to arbitration or to the ICC. We will not accept anything else."

An official at Mr Netanyahu’s office told Reuters they were “willing to transfer back to the Palestinian Authority the sum that was returned whenever it wishes”.

The decision to freeze the tax transfers to the PA, which provide two-thirds of its income, forced it to cut by 40% the salaries of thousands of government employees and announce an emergency budget.

Israel has suspended the transfers on three occasions in the past decade, but in January the Palestinian economy was already struggling, with the deficit at around 15% of GDP, unemployment at 25%, output set to contract, and donors not fulfilling funding commitments.

Will ICC help or hinder Palestinian cause?

Insight - In Netanyahu's fourth term, what's next for Israeli settlements?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the media in Jerusalem April 1, 2015.-REUTERS/DEBBIE HILL/POOL

MITZPE KRAMIM, WEST BANK | BY MAAYAN LUBELL- Mon Apr 6, 2015

(Reuters) - A day before his surprise election victory last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood against the backdrop of a construction site in Har Homa, a towering settlement in the occupied West Bank, and pledged to go on building.

Insight - In Netanyahu's Fourth Term, What's Next for Israeli Settlements by Thavam Ratna

Medvedev: Vietnam close to deal with Russian-led trade area

Russian Prime Ministery Dmitry Medvedev, left, and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung witness the signing of cooperation agreements in Hanoi, Vietnam Monday, April 6, 2015. Medvedev is on a two-day visit to the communist country. 

By Tran Van Minh -The Associated Press-Published: April 6, 2015

HANOI, Vietnam — Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that Vietnam is close to agreeing a free trade deal with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.

He predicted that Russia's annual trade with Vietnam could increase by fourfold to $10 billion over the next five years. The two sides also agreed to expand oil and gas exploration in the contested South China Sea.

Medvedev is on a 2-day official visit to Communist Party-ruled Vietnam and held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung.

Wary of the growing influence of giant northern neighbor China, the Vietnamese government has sought to strengthen commercial and military ties with world powers including the its former enemy the United States and Japan. Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations are embroiled in disputes with Beijing over its expansive claim to the South China Sea.

Medvedev said a trade agreement between Vietnam and the EEU, an economic community which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan, would help bolster economic ties.

"We have agreed on most contents of the agreement," Medvedev said through a translator during a press briefing. "I think this is the factor that would promote bilateral trade."

Dung said he hoped the trade pact would be signed in the first half of this year.

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Russia was $2.5 billion last year.

The two leaders witnessed the signing of several energy cooperation agreements including Russia's Gazprom Neft's intention to buy 49 percent of a 6.5 million-ton oil refinery in central Vietnam which is operational.

Dung said the two leaders agreed on the expansion of cooperation in oil and gas projects in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the East Sea, which is the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea.

"We are committed to creating favorable and secure conditions for Russian oil companies to operate in Vietnamese waters," Dung said.

Vietnam along with China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan claim all or parts of the South China Sea which is believed to be rich in oil and gas and is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Medvedev was scheduled to meet with President Truong Tan Sang and Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong later Monday. He will also visit Ho Chi Minh City, a bustling commercial city in the south, before leaving Tuesday.

India’s Modi pushes to streamline sale of farmland for development

Rejected, unsound, low-quality bricks, marked with an X, can be seen at a former field, now the construction site for a resettlement and rehabilitation colony. Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post

A worker holds freshly plucked onions while Karuna Devi works a plot that is supposed to be acquired by the Indian company National Thermal Power Corp. in Dhenga Village, Jharkhand. The family that owns the plot opposes the land acquisition. Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post

By Rama Lakshmi April 6 at 3:30 AM

DHENGA, India — Day after day, dozens of farmers in this eastern Indian village squat under a tent, wave flags and shout “This land is ours” and “Go back” as ripe golden wheat rustles in the background.

They are protesting the government’s plan to acquire their farmland to mine coal to supply to the power plants nearby. Last month, 13 of them were arrested and sent to jail for obstructing government work.

For more than a decade, the government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation has struggled to buy land from the farmers in what is called the “rice bowl” of the Jharkhand state. But so far, it has not managed to acquire half of the 2,800 acres it needs, because the locals won’t sell.

“The government says it needs our land for the nation to progress,” said Dhaneshwar Prasad, a 37-year-old farmer. But without the land, he said,the farmers would have nothing. “Why doesn’t it just give us poison instead?” he said.

“This land is so fertile, I grow wheat, rice, vegetables, cane and corn. Why would I sell this land to the government? This land gives me a life of dignity,” said Prasad.

Protests like these pose a formidable challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plans to boost Asia’s third largest economy, break business bottlenecks and launch stalled projects worth more than $300 billion. Modi has failed to convince parliament to pass new proposals that would make it easier for the government and businesses to buy farmland. As a stop-gap measure, he issued an executive order in December putting the new proposals in place; that is likely to be extended for a few more months. But ultimately he will still need the bill to pass.

Critics say this may tarnish his image in a country where land is a politically charged issue — especially because past governments have indiscriminately used a British colonial law to forcibly seize land from farmers and underpay them. The Congress Party-led coalition government that preceded Modi passed a law in 2013 that required the consent of 70 percent of the people affected by a project and much higher compensation to displaced farmers.

But some say it went too far.

“In trying to atone for the sins of the past, the previous government swung to the other extreme and made it impossible to do business,” said Gurcharan Das, a business historian and author. “It would have taken an average of 50 months to acquire one acre of land. Modi is trying to reduce the red tape. But the opposition is painting it as a battle between the good farmer and the big bad industry.”

Modi’s proposals eliminate the consent requirement if the land is being acquired for projects that boost national security, rural electricity, industrial corridors or affordable housing. He also expanded the category of projects that are eligible for higher compensation.

But in recent weeks, farmers’ unions have held sit-ins, opposition lawmakers have stalled the amendments and Modi has been called “anti-farmer” — a label that can spell political disaster in a country where approximately 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas.

As opposition mounted, Modi addressed the nation’s farmers in his Sunday radio address last month with a passionate plea for building industrial infrastructure that will create jobs.

About half of India’s workforce is engaged in agriculture, which contributes only 18 percent of the nation’s economic output. Modi wants to increase the country’s manufacturing base from just 16 percent of GDP to 25 percent.

In his radio address, Modi warned the farmers against “politically motivated propaganda.”

“Do we want the children of our villages to suffocate in the slums of Delhi and Mumbai? Should they not get an employment opportunity closer to their home if a small industry comes up 12-15 miles away from their village?” Modi asked.

In Dhenga, villagers get just four hours of electricity every day. They say they want more power but do not want to sell their fertile land for coal. Harvesting one acre of rice here brings more than $4,200, they say.

Being compensated four times the market price of the land, as the law now provides, still does not sway them.

“We are not poor people, we are proud owners of land,” Savita Devi, a farmer, said indignantly. “We will become poor the day our land is taken away and we are forced to become factory laborers.”

Attached to the land

Acquiring land is especially difficult in a country with only one-third of the land mass of the United States, but more than four times the population. China, with a similar population to India’s, has three times the land area. Many of the government’s planned industrial projects are in densely populated regions with rich soil and plenty of water.

“The fears of the farmers are not imaginary,” said Jairam Ramesh , a senior Congress party leader. “Land is the only form of social security for more than 150 million farming families, and horrible injustices have been perpetrated on them in the past in the name of development.”

The changes that Modi has proposed threaten the safeguard created by the 2013 law that gave the farmers the right to veto big government projects on their land, he added. The earlier law also assured farmers that fertile, multi-crop, irrigated land would be acquired only as a “last resort.” Modi has removed that.

Power plants, railroads, highways and coal-mining projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been stalled over land issues around Dhenga since 2004, much to the chagrin of the local authorities.

“People are emotionally attached to their land, but that mindset must change,” said Mukesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of the district. “If we want more electricity, televisions, cars, highways then someone somewhere has to sell their land. They can’t keep saying no. All these projects will bring benefits for future generations.”

Under pressure, some farmers did sell, but now complain they have lost their livelihood.

“I built a house, spent on a family wedding and bought a motorcycle. There is hardly any money left now,” said Ganesh Mahato, 70, who now grazes cows. “My son who has a college degree has not found a job yet. My other son is a construction laborer. And the bright future of jobs that was promised has still not come.”

The protesting farmers say Modi’s new proposals may embolden local authorities to swoop in and seize their land once and for all.

“Money is like water — it quickly slips through your fingers. But land stays with us forever,” Prasad said.

Britain’s health service: the best in the world?

Britain’s health service: the best in the world?

Sunday 05 Apr 2015

So far, so predictable. One week of the formal election campaign underway and one key political football emerges, as so often before, the NHS.

To hear the parties bicker – particularly Labour and the Conservatives, Britain’s health service is all but on its last legs.

Today a simple report fell into my hands. It is a comparative survey of the health systems in eleven developed countries – The UK, US, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany, France Canada, and Australia. It is an amazing read.

Funded and carried out by the independent Commonwealth Fund, based in New York, Britain’s health service comes out top in nine of the researched categories, 2nd in one, and 3rd in another. It also come out significantly cheaper than any of the others surveyed. The work was carried out in 2014.

Read the report here: how the US health care system compares internationally

Now, it’s important to recognise that this research was not designed to make other countries look good. It had a very US focused approach which was to measure America’s appalling outcomes compared with the rest of those countries surveyed. It was by happenchance that Britain came out top.

However, there is one worrying finding. Our NHS is the best in the world, until you come to the segment identified as ‘Healthy Lives’. Here the UK comes second to bottom. I have contacted the researchers to find out how a country with the best health service in world, boasts such ‘unhealthy lives’. When I have their answer… I shall follow this Snowblog up with a sequel.

In the meantime, might it perhaps be a good idea for some British politician somewhere to praise the ‘best health service in the world’ and see how we can make it yet better, without damaging the incredible services currently offered free at the point of delivery?