‘Constitutional conspiracy’ or what

N Sathiya Moorthy-August 6, 2018, 8:55 pm 

Chennai, 6 August 2018

Sad but true, the Constitution-making process has once again hit a road-block. All stake-holders, starting with the Sri Lankan people, whom it is supposed to serve, knew it would be so. Yet, the political class, or at least the ruling combine and their ‘non-committed, free-will’ TNA ally, seemed wanting to go through the motions of the same, for their own petty, political reasons.

It started with Speaker Karu Jayasuriya elevating the TNA to the status of the ‘Leader of the Opposition’, when the ‘real Opposition’ to this Government, was already inside-outside, in the form of the ‘SLFP rebels’ of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. To argue that there was a likely ‘national consensus’ on key issues as the Leader of the Opposition, TNA’s R Sampanthan, was on board, was a self-delusion at best and farcical otherwise.

Sampanthan’s elevation as the Leader of the Opposition became possible obviously done at the behest of incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who too were expected to fall out at the first conceivable occasion. They have done so since, but then neither seems to be too bothered about the Constitution-making no real progress.

‘Perverse approach

Not very long ago, Parliament was witness to UPFA member and former Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara talking about a ‘plot’ to topple the President through constitutional means. According to him, the Steering Committee, headed by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, had before it, a proposal for the removal of the President (starting possibly with incumbent Sirisena?) if the Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition agreed to it.

Parliamentarian Jayasekara’s submission was not contested, and not certainly denied. In the immediate context, it well implied a ‘constitutional conspiracy’ of the 18-A and 19-A kinds, yes. But then, the architects of such a perverse approach also knew that they would not be able to get away with it.

‘Perverse’ it was, for two, or three, specific reasons. One, even granting that the Government did not require the support of the SLPP-JO as the ‘SLFP rebels’ and their allies from Elections-2015 to get it passed, at the end, it would have pushed the ‘residual’ Sirisena MPs into the hands of the Rajapaksas, or those that did not want to conveniently cross over to the UNP.

Two, the entire scheme seems to have been hatched with the SLPP-JO occupying the seat of the ‘Leader of the Opposition’, as the combine and its leadership alone stands to gain if incumbent Sirisena were to be ‘constitutionally eliminated’ even before his term ended, in about a year’s time. It has to be assumed that Sampanthan or any other Tamil leader as the Leader of the Opposition would not want to encourage a situation where the Rajapaksas would get back the SLFP brand all over again, and at their call.

The height of ‘perversity’ is in the belief of the architects of the ‘conspiracy’ that they could casually change the constitutional provision for the limited purpose of having the incumbent removed. They already have the ‘impeachment’ provision in the present Constitution, which is fairer and relatively transparent than the proposed scheme.

Whose ‘experts’?

As another member, Mahindananda Aluthgamage of the SLPP-JO, claimed in Parliament on the occasion that the Experts’ panel report for the Steering Committee did not carry the signatures of all its members. He even claimed that at least one signature had been forged. True or not, going by media reports at least, he was not challenged on either count.

The last time an Experts Panel was in the news, it was attached to President Rajapaksa’s famous/infamous All-Party Representative Committee (APRC) under then Minister, Tissa Vitharana. It is anybody’s guess how the report by a panel of academic reports meant for the eyes of the political class constituting the APRC got leaked even possibly before many of the Committee members got down to reading it.

The Tamils swore by the Experts Panel report at the time, so did sections of the international community. It took time and effort on the part of APRC chair Vitharana and the Rajapaksa regime to try and convince the world that it was not the final document, but was only a ‘working paper’. Today, the nation is witnessing a worse experience with the Experts’ Panel.

In the Sri Lankan politico-constitutional context, anything that is bad in part is assumed as bad in full. The Tamils and the international community would not have the Rajapaksa regime, post-war. So, the Government’s constitutional initiatives of the kind had to fall by the way side, for reasons that were mostly invented, and not applied when the present regime proposed a process more difficult than at the time.

Before Mahinda R, we had the UNP Opposition burning the ‘Chandrika Package’, whose ‘ethnic content’, the Tamils accepted. The UNP, then again under present-day Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, could not allow (and for valid reasons) CBK using the constitutional process to smuggle in an ‘extended term’ for the self.

The parallels to the present-day ‘plot’ to remove the President are striking. Yet, there is no knowing, why the UNP could not have demanded the delineation of the ‘ethnic component’ in the ‘Chandrika Package’ and voting it in on issues even while opposing the ‘offending’ provisions.

The present-day linkage of the ‘Executive Presidency’ and its abolition to what essentially was projected as a ‘political solution’ to the ‘national problem’ that’s the ethnic issue still, is beset with the kind of treatment that the ‘Chandrika Package’ faced in its time. Every President, before getting elected to the office, wants the ‘Executive Presidency’ abolished, but has kept singing a different tune once in office. Such a mixture was bound to fail, and it seems to be going downhill the same way this time too.

Central intervention

Yet, under the circumstances, the TNA parliamentary group at least from among the diverse Tamil groups, including a ‘rebel TNA’, has agreed to very many things with grace. One is the willingness to include a provision for ‘Central intervention’, somewhere like Article 356 of the Indian Constitution, if their Provincial Administration was seen as working against national interests.

Security and territorial integrity are keys to ‘national interests’ in contemporary Sri Lankan context. As is known, the Tamils were averse to the inclusion of an ‘Indian 356 like provision’ in the Sri Lankan Constitution, until now.

Media reports have also quoted Sampanthan that he did raise the new Constitution with Mahinda Rajapaksa, and brother and ex-Defence Secretary Gota R, at a Chinese Embassy Reception recently. Leave aside the venue of discussing an ‘internal issue’ of Sri Lanka at such a venue, that too in the midst of a crowd in a star-hotel, the bold way would have been for Sampanthan to seek a formal appointment with the Rajapaksas, with or without their aides, to discuss the matter, if the idea is to rope in their backing, now or later.

Making up with minorities

For their part, the Rajapaksas began making up with the ‘minorities’, first by attending the Islamic ‘Ifthar’ fast-breaking ceremony in the holy month of Ramzan. Gota has since met with Tamil print and electronic media journalists, though it can only be a beginning.

It looks as if Gota R at least seems wanting to stick to ‘development’ alone as the key to assuaging the hurt feelings of the Tamil. Rather, he seems to be still focussing on the ‘economic rehabilitation’ of the war victims, rather than assuaging their emotional hurt and addressing their political demands.

Going beyond a face-to-face between the Tamils and the Rajapaksas first and the JO constituents later, any key to any new Constitution or newer constitutional provision that is workable on the ground relates to the bifurcation of the ‘ethnic issue’ parts from the ‘Executive Presidency’ contents. After all, the nation has the past experience of 13-A up on the altar and staying there still, for 30 long years.

The Tamils and all Sri other Lankans, too, need to decide early on if they want yet another Constitution that does not work and demands a replacement down the years (like the nation’s electoral system), or a less ambitious project whose provisions can be tested on the ground, made to work, before proceeding with more of the same. The Tamils on the one hand (viz ethnic issue) and the nation as a whole (on the Executive Presidency and rest) need to decide even at this late day, what they want and how to go about it, before going about it.

Else, as in the past, it would all become a ‘constitutional conspiracy’ to thwart it all, as was the case every time the issue was put up on the anvil. The aim, effort and the result all on those occasions was to find no solution either to the ethnic issue or to the Executive Presidency.

(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)

Sri Lanka: Protect people from trade union bosses

The civic consciousness of the established political system, as well as, that of many professionals and trade unions is not at a socially just and healthy level in Sri Lanka.

by Fr. Augustine Fernando-Aug 7, 2018

( August 7, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The sick people, who due to various ailments become the most physically weak and helpless citizens, have been once again used by the leadership of the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) as a tool for them to gain their demands, which are indeed privileges not given to other citizens. Going beyond their sphere of selfish interests, to make their demands look legitimate, they have also added demands concerning trade agreements hooking themselves to political alliances.

A civic consciousness makes all citizens, rich and poor pay indirect taxes. The poor curtail their taxed purchases to the minimum, often omitting even the most essential for the livelihood of their families. Because the worth of their eight hours of work is financially not sufficiently appreciated and assessed, they are not paid enough to meet even their basic requirements. Those who earn far more than an average well-to-do are required to also pay direct taxes according to their incomes. Some of those who gain big incomes put in a few extra hours during weekdays and earn handsomely. Some also gain it very leisurely; making use of the huge volume of finances, they have somehow got hold of. They have had the privilege and opportunity to gain large incomes from the socio-economic political environment, populated by a millions of poor, helpless and voiceless citizens whose many, varied and complex deprivations paradoxically enrich the privileged. The same socio-economic political environment also unfairly deprives the fruits of their life-savings to the now weak and aged citizens, who have worked hard and retired.

The civic consciousness of the established political system, as well as, that of many professionals and trade unions is not at a socially just and healthy level in Sri Lanka. Among the active participants in the political establishment who are in the National Legislature are many uneducated, ignorant, uncouth, and as regards civic consciousness and social responsibility, the most abominably rotten among the people who hardly qualify to be called responsible citizens. They are carrying on the corrupt political legacy bequeathed to them by the previous self-absorbed regime now exhibiting self-righteous postures.

Added to them come the several trade unions of government servants and the GMOA, whose members are by-products of an education system that has supplied this country a skewed proportion of citizens lacking a wholesome civic sense. These senseless people are completely undisturbed by the mayhem they have caused to thousands of poor people, whose taxes have educated and maintained them, and have also contributed to sustain the primary, secondary and tertiary education of the medical doctors. Of course, even though their medical education and training may not have trained them to do harm to poor innocent people, their trade union activities make them purveyors of a social evil on an island-wide scale. They seem to have lacked in their professional medical education an important input, namely, ethico-moral standards and attitudes, civic consciousness, social values and professional responsibility.

When I was Chaplain at the Peradeniya campus, I have been asked to speak to the students at the Medical Faculty and to a general meeting of students in the Arts Theatre in the 1970s. Some kind of introduction to ethico-moral and social themes, as well as other intellectual, literary, aesthetic and social activities may have been given to not only medical students, but also to students of other faculties. In any case Catholic students of various faculties got together to conduct free classes for G.C.E. Ordinary level students living in Hindagala and the adjoining village, to help them especially in Maths.

Unfortunately, political issues and inhuman ragging take the centre stage in today’s university life, to make the beginning of a university education in Sri Lankan a frighteningly tortuous affair. It augurs neither a wholesome adventure in education, nor an experience of concentrated study and search for truth, humane, cultured and fraternal living bourgeoning forth in the groves of academe. Sri Lanka’s university system should not be satisfied in producing a handful of eminent persons skilled in various professions, but aim at creating out of every generation of students a good multitude of highly qualified, well-motivated and responsible citizens who get to be known for their breadth of learning, depth of humanity and the scope of service to their motherland. It is most unfortunate that more than 500 university graduates, instead of returning to serve their universities have deserted the institutions that nurtured them, for the attractions they have found in the countries where they were sent for post-graduate studies. The situation in the universities seem to be so incongruous that it needs the permission of some student leaders to keep the universities open!

Ignorant of what they ought to be, the GMOA have turned out to become an ‘Oppressors’ Association’ along with other trade unions of various government services that go on strikes and oppress the people they are supposed to serve. To the medical service and other public services, louts without a minimum sense of civic sense have been recruited. All those who resort to strikes and threaten to strike over various issues, are not only unprofessionally contesting their manner of service and oppressing the people, but in a most degrading manner despising and demeaning the human dignity of the unprivileged citizens of this Country, the poor women, children and the aged, and violating their human rights.

While the GMOA leadership is gloating over the strike by some 20,000 doctors, I have had the blessing of encountering a very outgoing kind and compassionate team of doctors, nurses and other assisting personnel at the Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama. Dr. Dehan Gunasekera and Dr. Panduka in treating me directed me to some younger doctors under them who very caringly helped me through a very discomforting intervention, prior to my seeing them again to get further treatment. I also observed how the doctors, nurses and numerous other hospital workers gave every patient attention and care. My two-day stay at Apeksha Hospital was as pleasant as a stay in a hospital could be. I pray that the doctors, nurses, all those hospital workers, and their entire households be blessed by God, for the healing and the ray of hope they bring to the lives of the patients they caringly serve.

If the GMOA leadership is not hard-hearted but sensitive enough, they might become what doctors ought to be by taking on the example and attitudes of the doctors and health care staff that are evident and experienced by the patients and the people who come to Apeksha Hospital.

Investor Confidence At Risk: Ministers Ignore President’s Procurement Appeals Board Directives

AUGUST 6, 2018

Strong concern is being expressed by foreign missions, overseas investors, and local contractors over a clear breakdown of Sri Lanka’s Procurement Appeals Process for large scale, Cabinet level Procurements related to Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committees, (SCAPC), Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committees (CAPC) and Cabinet Appointed Negotiating Committees (CANC).

Mahinda Samarasinghe

According to sources one of India’s largest port operations and marine services companies, Ocean Sparkle Ltd (OSL), had last week made representations to the government and to the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka itself about their disappointment over the Appeals process and its outcomes.

OSL, backed by reputed equity investors like IFC Washington, Standard Chartered and Kaup Capital, owns and operates one of the largest fleets of harbour crafts in India and overseas — over 100, comprising mainly tug boats, PSVs, pilot boats, mooring boats, dredgers and barges.  It has operations in all 12 major ports in India (including JNPT, Mumbai Port, Tuticorin, Ennore, Chennai, Goa etc.) as well as commercial and private ports.  OSL provides comprehensive port Operations and Management Services in three of India’s four LNG terminals and is Petronet’s service provider in Kochi and Dahej.

OSL had provided specialised harbour towage services at Colombo Port between 2010 and 2016 and had recently taken part in a tender for charter hire of tug boats for another period of three years. “Their bid was the lowest cost, most responsive bid amongst the three bids that were received. OSL were also the only bidder to have firsthand knowledge and experience of operating at Colombo Port. However, their bid was rejected saying OSL had not met some procedural criteria and they appealed against that decision to the Procurement Appeals Board (PAB),” a source close to the PAB appeal process for OSL said.

OSL engaged President’s Counsel Sanjeeva Jayawardena, who filed a written submission with the PAB in support of OSL’s appeal. Through Mr. Jayawardena’s submissions and the subsequent PAB hearing, OSL strived to prove that they were the lowest evaluated substantially responsive bidder and that the procedural criteria that were given as the reasons for the bid being rejected, were not even requirements to be satisfied by any bidder at the time of bid submission. “Based on the documentation they provided and their own documentation, the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) and the CANC both agreed that OSL were the lowest cost bidder and the most responsive other than for the procedural issues that were then dealt with at the PAB hearing. They not only agreed once, but on three separate occasions as the record will show,” the source, who requested anonymity, said.

The PAB had decided the CANC erred in rejecting the OSL bid on the procedural matters that dealt with whether or not at the time of bid submission, a 100 percent, wholly owned subsidiary of OSL, registered in Sri Lanka to satisfy another criteria that said the tub boats must be Sri Lankan flagged, must undertake in a ‘letter of intent’ to enter into a joint venture agreement with the parent company OSL.

Arjuna

The PAB had conveyed their decision to the Secretary to the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, L.P. Jayampathy with a copy to the cabinet office as mandated by the Procurement Guidelines.

According to sources from the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, the PAB decision has been ignored by the Secretary and a cabinet memorandum was drafted to show that the PAB itself had erred in deciding which bid was the lowest bid.  “This was never in contention with both the TEC and CANC agreeing at the hearing that the bid submitted by OSL was the lowest. Therefore, PAB had no role in deciding which bid was the lowest. The PAB simply restated the amounts that were agreed to by both the TEC and the CANC at the hearing and gave their opinion that the procedural issues raised by the CANC as factors for disqualification were not applicable,” a ministry source indicated.

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Vijayakala Maheswaran blames South and politicians for narcotics in North

LEON BERENGER-AUG 06 2018

Government Parliamentarian Vijayakala Maheswaran on Friday (4) charged that the South was responsible for supplying drugs to the North and that the menace had increased with the end of the separatist conflict in 2009.

She alleged that narcotics were moving freely from the South of the country to the North with the massive support of errant lawmakers. She was speaking at the launch of a new trophy for a soccer tournament at the Uruthirapuram Sports Club in Kilinochchi on Friday.

She added that both the Police and the Navy have seized large amounts of narcotics, including heroin, in the North and East that had been smuggled into those areas by boat from locations in the South.

She also said certain people in the South were responsible for creating drug addicts in the North where earlier people had originally consumed medicinal liquids.  According to the MP, this drug hazard rapidly spread throughout the North, since there was easy access to and from the southern part of the country with the conclusion of hostilities, between the LTTE and the security forces. MP Maheshwaran was forced to step down as State Minister for Women’s and children’s Affairs, following a controversial statement, where she called for the return of the Tamil Tigers in order to restore law and order in the North and East.

The MP’s remarks are currently under investigation while opposition lawmakers have called for her removal from the House. A senior policeman however rubbished the MP’s claims saying that a serious narcotic issue does not exist in the North at the moment adding the bulk of imported Cannabis was smuggled to the South from the Peninsula.

The Navy along with the Coast Guard has made huge detections of imported cannabis that had been smuggled into the northern part of the country from India via the Palk Strait. The bulk of the narcotic smuggling was carried out using boats with many of the smugglers disguised as fishermen, the official added.

The Navy for their part said that some 72 persons were arrested during 55 drug detections from the start of this year to date. The narcotics included 1,286 kg of Kerala Cannabis, 3.9 kg of Hashish, 3.6 kg of Opium. 0.5kg of heroin 0.1 kg of ice during this period, an official said. MP Maheshwaran could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Why Sri Lanka must not revive the death penalty. My insights from working on capital cases in the United States

Aug 7, 2018

A guest post from Catherine Dunmore, a former Sri Lanka Campaign volunteer who recently spent several months working with inmates facing the death penalty in Florida (US) through the charity Amicus.

In 1976, Sri Lanka became a regional trailblazer by turning its back on one of humanity’s most cruel, inhumane and degrading practices: the death penalty. The government’s moratorium on capital punishment, which has seen sentences for executions routinely commuted to life in prison, has meant that for the past forty years Sri Lanka has enjoyed the status of a country that opposes, at least on paper, forcibly ending the lives of citizens. This is a small but not insignificant redeeming attribute of a country where state-sponsored extra-judicial killings, torture and disappearances have otherwise been routine.

Yet today, even this remaining badge of decency is under threat, with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena apparently determined to see the death penalty re-imposed, beginning with the execution of 19 individuals on drug related offences. It is a move stemming from growing anxiety about Sri Lanka’s role as a transhipment point for narcotics smuggling, and a belief that a tougher approach is needed to combat a perceived increase in drug related crime. Rather disturbingly, officials have promised to “replicate the success” of President Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines – a “success” which has seen the extrajudicial killing of over 4,200 suspected drug dealers, the subsequent opening of a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court, and a suggestion by a United Nations human rights chief that the President be referred for psychiatric examination.

As someone who has spent time working with a Public Defenders Office on death penalty cases in the United States – interacting with inmates, talking to medical experts, and witnessing depositions – I have seen first-hand the appalling toll that capital punishment extracts; not just on individuals, but on families and society at large. The Sri Lanka Campaign has previously outlined why the death penalty is never the answer – a message recently echoed by diplomats in Colombo, international organisations such as Amnesty International, as well as local activists. Here, based on my personal reflections of working on death penalty cases, I outline my five key reasons why the Sri Lankan government should not revive the death penalty:

1) The death penalty amounts to torture

Under international law, all persons have the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This fundamental right is irreversibly breached by the act of killing itself; but is also breached where inmates are subjected to prolonged stays on death row.

Having seen the severe mental and emotional anguish that inmates can experience while waiting for their sentences to be carried out – periods often amounting to many decades – I can confidently say that international legal experts are correct when they state that simply spending time on death row can itself constitute a form of torture.

2) Capital punishment for drug offences is prohibited under international law

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory, the use of the death penalty is restricted to only “the most serious crimes”. This means crimes involving intentional killing – and not the kind of drug trafficking offences to which Sirisena says he is responding.

3) Capital punishment allows judicial errors to become fatal and irreversible

An execution is an ultimate and irrevocable form of punishment, which precludes the possibility of subsequent judicial reversals based on, for example, new evidence or changes to the law. Incorrect findings of guilt arising from factors such as forced confessions, ineffective counsel, police evidence tampering and judicial or jury bias – factors particularly salient in the Sri Lankan context – cannot be redeemed. The risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. Since 1973, 162 people sent to death row in the US have later been exonerated or released on grounds of innocence, whilst others have been executed despite serious doubts over their guilt.

4) Capital punishment has no proven unique deterrent effect

The death penalty has no proven unique deterrent effect on crime when compared to conventional forms of punishment, such as imprisonment. Claims to the contrary by executing nations have routinely been discredited by academic studies.

The hypothetical threat of a future execution is highly unlikely to enter the minds of perpetrators suffering from mental illness, or those acting under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or out of fear, panic or rage. Over 88% of America’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder and, strikingly, the murder rate in non-death penalty US states has remained consistently lower than the rate in death penalty states.

5) Capital punishment is fundamentally discriminatory

The death penalty is a sentence disproportionately handed out to those from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds and/or those belonging to racial, ethnic or religious minorities. For instance, research in Philadelphia and Houston has shown that black defendants are more than three times as likely to face a death sentence than white defendants. Additional studies have shown that 95% of convicts on US death rows come from underprivileged backgrounds. The socio-economic status of defendants in turn makes them more susceptible to miscarriages of justice; reliant as they frequently are on court-appointed lawyers who might lack sufficient means to access expert witnesses or specialist forensic examinations.[1]

In a country such as Sri Lanka, which has a long history of entrenched judicial bias against its minority communities, particularly Tamils, and where many individuals lack the economic means to mount an adequate defence against prosecutors when criminal charges are brought against them, the risk of discriminatory injustices involving the death penalty are all too clear.

The principled path

Amid many appalling violations by the Sri Lankan state over the past few decades, its long-standing moratorium on the death penalty has represented one of the few beacons of decency and respect for human life. The proposed resurrection of this barbaric punishment – premised on a knee-jerk policy response and a troubling sense of inspiration from one of the world’s bloodiest drug wars – would represent a major step backwards for the government’s already threadbare reputation as a protector of human rights.

Even more worrying, however, than the loss of international standing that would follow the revival of the death penalty, are the risks of grave injustice it would pose to all Sri Lankan citizens, particularly its most marginalised, as well as the accompanying wider erosion of respect for human life. The government of Sri Lanka appeared to recognise both these concerns when in 2016 it voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty. It would do well to revisit these concerns, and remember its earlier commitment to a more decent, principled path.

A final note from the Campaign Director:

A further disturbing element of recent discussions about reviving the death penalty in Sri Lanka has been the contribution of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo and the most senior member of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. In a media briefing on 12 July, the Cardinal – who has previously been tipped for the papacy – stated: “We will support President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to subject those who organize crime while being in the prison to death sentence.”

Following intense criticism, the Cardinal released a statementclarifying his remarks. Yet a close reading of the text suggests that his position on the death penalty remains ambiguous, and that he believes that there are circumstances in which it may be permissible for offenders to be executed. “It should be the last option, if at all,” he said.

This position is squarely at odds not only with basic Christian teachings, but also the position of the Pope, who just last year stated: “however grave the crime that may be committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”

The Sri Lanka Campaign has written to the Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, Edward Joseph Adams, calling on the Catholic Church to send a clear message to both Cardinal Ranjith and the government of Sri Lanka that it opposes the use of the death penalty without exception.

Footnotes:

[1] As stated recently by a group of United Nations human rights experts: “If you are poor, the chances of being sentenced to death are immensely higher than if you are rich. There could be no greater indictment of the death penalty than the fact that in practice it is really a penalty reserved for people from lower socio-economic groups. This turns it into a class-based form of discrimination in most countries, thus making it the equivalent of an arbitrary killing”.

GMOA - Enjoy life but pay taxes

The Joint Opposition (JO) and the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) are both complementing and competing with each other for the position of the most influential opposition of the UNP-led government. 

 2018-08-07

When one blocks roads with rallies the other cripples hospitals. When one pushes railway unions to action the other pulls medical students to roads. They both hold regular press conferences to ‘drive home’ the point that the country’s economy is in tatters and the government is out to sell the country. Other than one being a political movement and the other being a professional trade union there’s one other factor that makes them apart. That is with regard to the degree of public patience.   
While a chunk of the public seems to be quite impatient to see the return of the players of the Joint Opposition the whole country seems to be losing its patience with the doctors. Mention the acronym GMOA and the public explodes. It will rattle off dozens of things to prove that the GMOA’s taking patients to hostage is nothing less than criminal. 

After years of patience with the medical body the countrymen have started considering that doctors are even worse than politicians. Its appraisal on the medical officers is hitting such a rock bottom soon and is likely to say that it really would not mind the government encouraging an influx of doctors from Singapore or elsewhere to ensure smooth functioning of the health sector. After all what would the GMOA do if the public decides to side with the foreign doctors against the locals who take patients hostage at regular intervals?   

There was a time that the JVP was becoming quite a public nuisance by getting down workers and students to roads and making them clash with the police so that the masses were reminded that there was a political party by the name JVP. With its Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) and the network of workers unions the ex-Marxists created traffic snarls in the city every other day. Then came the GMOA, a professional group that the masses thought had some semblance of sanity more than the JVP. Today the JVP is almost totally eclipsed thanks to the never-ending SAITM protests and hospital strikes engineered by the GMOA.   

While there were speculations that the bulk of the units in the plush apartment complexes that are mushrooming in and around Colombo are bought by expatriates and also some shady businessmen who want to hide their black money, it has been revealed that quite a large number of them are owned by the doctors. This in fact is a good trend and the countrymen are happy that the professionals are earning well. 

Besides, that would encourage more ethical people to buy apartments as it’s nice to have professionals instead of some unknown shady businessmen as neighbours. 
However, what the doctors should realize is that the country can no longer afford to give them a free run while the rest of the country pays the taxes depending on income. Enjoy life but pay the taxes.   

Ministerial Response To Micro-Financed Suicides

By Ameer Ali –AUGUST 6, 2018

Dr. Ameer Ali

Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s “inherent moral responsibility” to assist struggling debtors, who are principally women, though commendable yet does not go far enough to tackle the main cause of indebtedness. His official observations need be elaborated to emphasise the gravity of the problem. Among the 75,000 women across 12 districts the vast majority are Tamils in the North and East. This is clear evidence that post war rebuilding of these districts has not really rehabilitated war affected families and tackled the underlying poverty and distress of war widows. It is almost a decade since the war ended and a victorious president proudly declared in 2009 that there would be no more Sinhalese or Tamils in the future but only Sri Lankans. Why then are these victimised Sri Lankan women left to become victims again, but this time in the hands of the microfinance companies, and driven to commit suicide? Will the write off of debts to the value of Rs. 100,000 or less solve the fundamental problem of poverty, which of course is not confined to Tamils only? The minister’s is a one off band aid solution and does not guarantee recurrence of debt-driven suicides. 

The government’s resolve to tighten the operation of finance companies is admirable, but the cap on interest rate at 35% needs serious reconsideration. It is far too high to borrowers of small scale non-consumption loans. Low fixed term interest over longer period of repayment for small loans should be the way to go about. Finance companies already earn huge profits from large scale business and riskier loans, and they can easily afford to charge low interest on small loans. These loans also should be part of a wider poverty alleviation program in which local councils should be induced to get involved. Small and medium scale income generating projects based on local resources should be developed by local and provincial councils, which should be generously funded by the government. If it wants to attack the systemic poverty resulting from an unrestrained open market then rural based poverty alleviation programs are a must. Sri Lanka still has a large rural sector that needs be developed with involvement of its residents. It is a tragedy that such programs have been neglected and gone out of government attention in the interest of large scale private enterprise, foreign investment and mega projects. Urban poverty is another area that needs a different set of solutions.

Of what use is economic growth if benefits of that growth do not reach people at the bottom layers of society? Suicides are a symptom of the failure of such growth. Take care of the people and GDP will take care of itself. China uplifted hundreds of millions of its citizens above poverty line not through the so called trickle-down effect of the market but through active state intervention.    

The debt-driven suicides in Tamil areas is also the reason why at  least one Tamil state minster got frustrated at her impotency to do anything while in government and burst out with a politically unpalatable statement of returning to the rebel days. There is nothing to get alarmed and angry about such outburst because it happens everywhere when governments neglect the welfare of its citizens. When for example, Mikhail Gorbachev renounced communism and embraced the Chicago model of capitalism he ended up creating a kleptocracy in Russia, and common people there were so frustrated they wished the return of Joseph Stalin. Also, without no end to the continuing oppression by Israel aren’t some Palestinians wishing for the return of Hitler? These are natural human qualities that need be understood within the relevant context.                

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Future of the finance function is business partnering

Tuesday, 7 August 2018


Every facet of business and commerce is being disrupted. Technology is changing how products are manufactured and how services are being delivered. Social media, digital transformation and drone technology are influencing news cycles and the procurement cycle. New business models are emerging – Uber, Airbnb and Netflix. The finance function is no exception – it is being disrupted. Finance professionals must respond.

What therefore is the future for finance professionals whose traditional roles of recording and reporting financial information in organisations are being robotised and automated? Or the future of auditors when blockchain technology is widely used? A third of the audit graduate intake of an Australian BIG4 firm last year did not even have an accounting background! When machine learning takes over, the displaced human accountants must transform their roles to provide a different value proposition if they are to remain relevant. What does this new transformed role look like?

The accounting profession came into being 500 years ago when Luca Pacioli conceptualised double entry book-keeping which has stood the test of time. His model of transaction recording is now being performed by robots through machine learning. Pacioli’s idea was not solely to record transactions in organisations but to also revolutionise the way of managing businesses to improve efficiency and profitability. The latter aspect will still require human accountants to add value. However, the way they perform this function is changing.

The traditional role of finance as ‘controllers’ is giving way to finance professionals adopting a ‘partnering’ approach with the rest of the business in order to engage with managers to add strategic value. In world class organisations finance teams are recognising that they must shift out of their traditional roles of score-keeper and tabulator and provide strategic leadership within their organisations.

Finance leaders are grappling with the challenge of creating effective finance business partners within their teams. Such finance business partners must demonstrate skills and competencies above and beyond the traditional technical accounting and finance skills. A new set of skills and competencies is required.

So what does it mean to be an effective finance business partner? There are two components to this transformation of finance professionals – enhanced ‘people’ skills, and leading edge ‘technical’ skills. In combination they form an effective business partnering skill set that will make finance a powerful strategic influence across the organisation. This is easier said than done. Traditionally finance professionals are trained in the technical skills of accounting, finance, audit and tax along with some business management skills. Further, those finance professionals in the audit space are inherently skewed to controllership.

However, even the technical skills that will be required of future finance professionals will be significantly different. The future technical skills for finance professionals will be in the areas of data and analytics as well as powerful software platforms that in combination with powerful management accounting tools enhance the contribution of finance business partners in adding tangible value to their organisations.

The only way to robot-proof any role is to humanise it. This is what the people skills expected of finance business partners do. Of the nine skills and traits identified as required for effective finance business partnering a number of them are the soft people skills; empathy with colleagues, compelling communication, preparedness to challenge and passion for business. Effective finance business partners are able to exploit these skills in influencing their business counterparts and together they add significant value to their organisations.

The training that is required for the next generation of finance professionals must support the aforesaid skills. While most professional accounting bodies do not include such skills in their formal training, finance professionals must take steps to acquire communication and presentation skills, influencing/persuading and negotiating skills, emotional intelligence, leadership and management skills as well as project and stakeholder management. The technical skills required will not only be of an accounting and finance nature but also include analytical skills, competencies in powerful software and data visualisation skills. In addition finance professionals will need to be critical thinkers and be able to exploit management accounting tools and techniques together with strategy related tools. Most importantly they must combine all of these skills and competencies to effectively partner with the business and add strategic value.

Finance business partners are no longer score-keepers and number crunchers of the past; they must have an in-depth understanding of every aspect of the business. Their expertise will no longer be in only preparing a set of numbers in accordance with rules and standards but also being able to relate the numbers to the strategy of the business. They must be able to tell the business story.

The concept of finance business partnering has been around for over a decade and world class organisations are well down the journey of transforming their finance teams. In these organisations finance business partners are embedded within the business working closely with their business partners and providing decision support. They are players in the one team taking joint ownership for outcomes and producing results.

Such finance business partners thoroughly understand the business, empathise with their business colleagues and provide invaluable support. They understand the key underlying business drivers of the organisation and are able to influence the business managers in making the right decisions. In addition they are coaches and mentors to rest of the business team.

The right hand person to every CEO is the CFO – providing confidence and comfort. Similarly every good finance business partner is the provider of confidence to his or her business partner at whatever level in the organisation they operate. The finance function is on a transformational journey. Its very existence into the future will depend on today’s finance leaders who must not only transform themselves but also the rest of their finance team. It’s not a choice. It is a necessity.

(The writer is a past global president of CIMA (UK). He is a global trainer and presenter and works with large organisations on finance transformation initiatives. He also runs public and in-house workshops in Sri Lanka.)