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media has been abuzz with reports on where our powers that be will be at
the time this edition goes into print – and more importantly, what it
will cost a nation that is by all accounts in line to becoming
planet earth’s next ‘failed state’. If there’s even an iota of truth to
what the newspapers have unearthed, we should all be out on the streets
in protest at how our money is being spent, let alone the embarrassment
that this highly irresponsible behaviour brings to the nation at large.
Representatives of the civilised world
attending the UN General Assembly will certainly raise an eyebrow or two
at the record-breaking entourage (possibly seven dirty dozens, we are
told) of what is now among the most infamous Third-World nations on
earth. Reports on who’s actually going need no repetition here – it’s a
waste of precious space, if nothing else. Suffice it to say that just a
handful will actually participate at the assembly sessions…
But the cost of this whirlwind tour –
that, for some, apparently began as much as two weeks in advance – is
worth mulling over. The press reports claim that our representatives are
spending up to US$ 3,750 a night at the plush Ritz Carlton hotel in
Manhattan – that’s in excess of four lakhs a night, for
accommodation alone!
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FIRST-WORLD FLEET IN
THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY
We now have a truly national airline (on top of
our partial ownership of SriLankan), such is the
extravagance with which we prioritise our national
agenda these days. Mooted as being the carrier
for our ‘working exports’ to the Middle East,
the airline is more often than not on duty
to whisk away our globetrotting politicians
from one country to another… |
Taking a probable mean (Rs. 125,000) of
the rates quoted in the newspapers, our so-called delegates could spend
as much as 10 million rupees collectively on lodging each day – and
assuming that their average stay is five days, a total bill of Rs. 50
million is on the cards for their creature comforts (pun most certainly
intended) alone. Add the cost of first-class airfares, lots of food and
drinks aplenty, and other ‘incidentals’ (which may include visits to
health clinics and even casinos, it is alleged), and the Treasury could
be forking out a lump sum closing on 100 million rupees.
So, how are ordinary Sri Lankans doing
these days?
Average household income (according to
a nationwide survey undertaken last year) is around Rs. 25,000 a month
and monthly per capita income a paltry Rs. 6,235. Sri Lankan households,
a Ministry of Housing and Planning report suggests, are spending less
than Rs. 23,000 in an entire month. There’s also half-a-million
unemployed fellow citizens in this country, not to mention the 20-plus
per cent of the population that continues to live in absolute poverty –
or below the international poverty line, to put it another way. Add to
this the other 20-plus per cent living in relative poverty, the working
poor and the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, and the ghastly
show of extravagance in New York is all the more despicable.
Living in dignity is a mere pipe dream
for a substantial proportion (possibly a majority) of the populace,
whilst living in the lap of luxury is par for the course for a handful
of politicians who are elected by these very people. Sadly, given the
made-for-the-West democracy that we continue to practise, this state of
highly undesirable affairs will not change – not unless there’s a
revolution in the offing…
Back to what our politicians and their
accomplices have been indulging themselves in…
One need only scrutinise the second
report released by the Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE) at the end
of August to decipher that the big stink emanates from the state sector.
There’s been little if any action taken by the Government on the first
COPE report, so one can only expect the second edition to gather dust in
the months ahead.
Turn the first (cover) page of the most
recent report and there’s something rotten that catches one’s eye
straight away. The 31-member committee includes some of the most
notorious parliamentarians of our times – notorious for their blatant
extravagance at our expense, notorious for their uncivilised behaviour
in the legislature, and notorious for the games their kith and kin play
in and out of nightclubs (and then in hospital!) around the city. Many
of them are the general public’s No. 1 menace, but they’ve been
entrusted with investigating the wrongdoings of other like-minded
miscreants! There are others, of course, who have crossed over to
government ranks in search of immunity and many more will follow in
their muddy footsteps (even cross back, if a fall of the Government is
likely) in the months ahead.
One gentleman, COPE’s chairman, stands
out as being amongst the few exceptions in our murky world of politics –
but he is singled out by those who know their necks are on the line, as
being a conspirator! That’s the level to which public life in this
country has stooped and it seems certain now that there’s no turning the
clock back.
There are some notable exclusions in
COPE II, it must be said.
For instance, an airline that was
launched to serve a phenomenal migration of unskilled labour to the
Middle East (an ‘export’ that Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne calls “slave labour”,
in this month’s Cover Supplement) with much fanfare – but about which
many questions are being asked by the media and the public alike,
vis-à-vis its incorporation and ownership – doesn’t even get a mention
in the earth-shattering report. Mihin Air is certainly offering budget
rates to travellers, but it is also being chartered by our politicians
at their every whim and fancy.
The media has also been swamped with
information on how our politicians are misusing their duty-free car
permits, importing the world’s most expensive cars and spending lavishly
on their self-imposed security.
It is an open secret, of course, that
the majority of our politicians (and others who are entrusted with
running this country on our behalf) continue to take their share of
anything and everything that crosses their path. State tenders, for
instance, are openly flaunted as being ‘commissionable’.
Perhaps, COPE could have cited the
real-estate market in the commercial capital… speak to the real-estate
pros and they will tell you that an overheated market is being driven by
politicians’ black money, and that they have paid cash for land
and buildings in plush suburbs going at over six million rupees a perch
in recent times. The bubble, they say, won’t burst until this dirty
money is drained out of the system.
Now, did someone tell us that it is
incumbent upon all parliamentarians to declare their assets to the House
every year? How many, may we enquire, have done so? And how many, one
wonders, passed the acid test?
The COPE chairman has lots more to do
(as Chandra Jayaratne told BENCHMARK’s ‘Voice Of Business’ segment two
weeks ago, COPE’s findings are just the tip of the “corruption
iceberg”), even if this is merely for public consumption. We, after all,
must consume too!
The business community must surely now
be asking itself whether it continues to pay its tax dues, when
hard-earned money is being wasted by those who demand them? Shareholders
and stakeholders may be taking notes in the meantime…
– Editor-In-Chief
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