“The four great religions of the world are deeply rooted in Sri Lanka. But today the religious and many others are crippled by their attachment to the materialistic world. Most often they are a frustrated intelligentsia, or mediocre men or seniors of grown up orphans of their closed institutions. Their minds have become blunted and blurred in their judgements, except for a dedicated and committed few.”___________________________
by Lorna Wright
(March 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Civil Society "pertaining to the individual" that’s you and me - Civil Society "pertaining to the community", that’s all of us, black, white, brown, all shades in between.
The NGOs - they are an integral part and the presumption is they individually and as a group are selfless. In the cry of affirmation there is hope they would restrain political parties - politicians - presumed the selfish from going berserk.
Politicians of today as distinct from the politician of yesteryear drain their energy, deplete their authoritative resources, swamped by corrupt practices inherent in supporters who surrounded them in electioneering. Negative reactions from the public become a reality and diminishes the possibility of constructive solutions.
Marginalised and divided are the much-maligned bureaucrats. Seniors of the old school governed by the FR and AR (Financial and Administrative Regulation) follow a hard often unyielding line and are stigmatized as intellectuals. The relationship with staff at all levels deteriorates or gets divided. Besides an A/L, a graduate of the 60s with Sinhala the mother tongue overnight, graduated on the lecturers notes. A vast majority of public servants are a lost generation of pen pushers. Discipline within the service is poor and authority mixed with politics confused at best. A worsening sense of drift in the administration. The country falls further into economic abyss. And we have cartloads of paperwork or meetings - meetings - meetings! At meetings there is a lurching monologue where every body gets long on gossip and short on veracity.
The four great religions of the world are deeply rooted in Sri Lanka. But today the religious and many others are crippled by their attachment to the materialistic world. Most often they are a frustrated intelligentsia, or mediocre men or seniors of grown up orphans of their closed institutions. Their minds have become blunted and blurred in their judgements, except for a dedicated and committed few.
For them too, economic survival plays a role - indiscriminate allure of excess, buying is more important than giving, having is more important than being part of. It often seems that the sterile ceremonies of consumerism have become the most profound of rituals - they share less with the people as a people.
These value questions affect families, more so the youth of today.
In the unlimited personal freedom and rampaging materialism and crass T.V. propaganda, at every street corner there is in this world for the poor, for the youth a crying hunger for Family - Guidance - Love from a Mother.
Many NGOs operating today in unstable compounds are made up of good honourable selfless people. Those who had blocked off their lives bringing up a family, feel the void of an active life, a certain spiritual emptiness, so they turn to institutions with popular suggestive themes of poverty, malnutrition, education, unemployment. But it is a chilling experience for a visionary when at the annual general meeting he/she is replaced and out in the cold. There is a crying need to turn words into deeds. Many an individual needs group support and turns to an NGO.
But NGO and the hardships now enacted on them by the state are very much a liability. The Employees Provident Fund Act of 1950 gave social security to employees in the private sector and state corporations. Thereafter, from time to time 12 other orders were issued. However charitable and religious institutions were exempt. But that was withdrawn and applied with retrospective effect in 1991 if the institutions had more than 10 employees. There was also a surcharge varying from 5% to 50% if it was not made on due date. It deprived most worthy institutions of their reserves. Acquired at very great sacrifice.
Most NGOs depend solely on donors and there is a time frame for utilization of funds. If they generate any income from business, training poor youth, it is incorporating cost of training material. "This is carrying out in good part the responsibility of the state to alleviate poverty through various services" - said an ex-Labour Commissioner Mr. Arthur de Silva - "They should have examined the role of the NGOs and their functioning before they were brought into the EPF and the ETF schemes, together with those profit motivated business concerns. They should have used the discretion given by the legislature. The government should not break the camels back.
Says Cressida Senanayake, former Commissioner Inland Revenue and President Sri Lanka Federation of University Women and All Ceylon Buddhist Congress. "The NGOs have been crippled from year to year draining their resources in the form of income tax and turnover taxes. For instance local and foreign donors given 100% tax relief on such donations. This concession was taken away and reduced to a maximum of Rs. 25,000/- while donations to government coffers remained at 100%. This was an encouragement to make donation to the government and discourage donation to NGOs".
What about the Labour Tribunals? Mr. Navaratne, Labour Commissioner agreed it did not serve the purpose it was designed for. It had become a haven of extortion for the employee and waste of NGO staff time, they could illafford to lose.
Most NGOs attempt to target the 1.5 million youth — rural and urban that do not move into the white collar and the IT career areas. They can only use their hands. The hands the multinationals come here to exploit.
The aspirations of these youth is to get a skill, be semi-skilled, construction workers certificate, to go abroad, to learn spoken English.
Sri Lanka would then, perhaps to great extent lessen the indiscriminate indictment politically instigated of one race of the other.
by Lorna Wright
(March 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Civil Society "pertaining to the individual" that’s you and me - Civil Society "pertaining to the community", that’s all of us, black, white, brown, all shades in between.
The NGOs - they are an integral part and the presumption is they individually and as a group are selfless. In the cry of affirmation there is hope they would restrain political parties - politicians - presumed the selfish from going berserk.
Politicians of today as distinct from the politician of yesteryear drain their energy, deplete their authoritative resources, swamped by corrupt practices inherent in supporters who surrounded them in electioneering. Negative reactions from the public become a reality and diminishes the possibility of constructive solutions.
Marginalised and divided are the much-maligned bureaucrats. Seniors of the old school governed by the FR and AR (Financial and Administrative Regulation) follow a hard often unyielding line and are stigmatized as intellectuals. The relationship with staff at all levels deteriorates or gets divided. Besides an A/L, a graduate of the 60s with Sinhala the mother tongue overnight, graduated on the lecturers notes. A vast majority of public servants are a lost generation of pen pushers. Discipline within the service is poor and authority mixed with politics confused at best. A worsening sense of drift in the administration. The country falls further into economic abyss. And we have cartloads of paperwork or meetings - meetings - meetings! At meetings there is a lurching monologue where every body gets long on gossip and short on veracity.
The four great religions of the world are deeply rooted in Sri Lanka. But today the religious and many others are crippled by their attachment to the materialistic world. Most often they are a frustrated intelligentsia, or mediocre men or seniors of grown up orphans of their closed institutions. Their minds have become blunted and blurred in their judgements, except for a dedicated and committed few.
For them too, economic survival plays a role - indiscriminate allure of excess, buying is more important than giving, having is more important than being part of. It often seems that the sterile ceremonies of consumerism have become the most profound of rituals - they share less with the people as a people.
These value questions affect families, more so the youth of today.
In the unlimited personal freedom and rampaging materialism and crass T.V. propaganda, at every street corner there is in this world for the poor, for the youth a crying hunger for Family - Guidance - Love from a Mother.
Many NGOs operating today in unstable compounds are made up of good honourable selfless people. Those who had blocked off their lives bringing up a family, feel the void of an active life, a certain spiritual emptiness, so they turn to institutions with popular suggestive themes of poverty, malnutrition, education, unemployment. But it is a chilling experience for a visionary when at the annual general meeting he/she is replaced and out in the cold. There is a crying need to turn words into deeds. Many an individual needs group support and turns to an NGO.
But NGO and the hardships now enacted on them by the state are very much a liability. The Employees Provident Fund Act of 1950 gave social security to employees in the private sector and state corporations. Thereafter, from time to time 12 other orders were issued. However charitable and religious institutions were exempt. But that was withdrawn and applied with retrospective effect in 1991 if the institutions had more than 10 employees. There was also a surcharge varying from 5% to 50% if it was not made on due date. It deprived most worthy institutions of their reserves. Acquired at very great sacrifice.
Most NGOs depend solely on donors and there is a time frame for utilization of funds. If they generate any income from business, training poor youth, it is incorporating cost of training material. "This is carrying out in good part the responsibility of the state to alleviate poverty through various services" - said an ex-Labour Commissioner Mr. Arthur de Silva - "They should have examined the role of the NGOs and their functioning before they were brought into the EPF and the ETF schemes, together with those profit motivated business concerns. They should have used the discretion given by the legislature. The government should not break the camels back.
Says Cressida Senanayake, former Commissioner Inland Revenue and President Sri Lanka Federation of University Women and All Ceylon Buddhist Congress. "The NGOs have been crippled from year to year draining their resources in the form of income tax and turnover taxes. For instance local and foreign donors given 100% tax relief on such donations. This concession was taken away and reduced to a maximum of Rs. 25,000/- while donations to government coffers remained at 100%. This was an encouragement to make donation to the government and discourage donation to NGOs".
What about the Labour Tribunals? Mr. Navaratne, Labour Commissioner agreed it did not serve the purpose it was designed for. It had become a haven of extortion for the employee and waste of NGO staff time, they could illafford to lose.
Most NGOs attempt to target the 1.5 million youth — rural and urban that do not move into the white collar and the IT career areas. They can only use their hands. The hands the multinationals come here to exploit.
The aspirations of these youth is to get a skill, be semi-skilled, construction workers certificate, to go abroad, to learn spoken English.
Sri Lanka would then, perhaps to great extent lessen the indiscriminate indictment politically instigated of one race of the other.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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