Not everybody can organize to get one tarred as quickly as Ranil last week

(August 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Everybody appreciates a tarred road. But not everybody can organize to get one tarred as quickly as Ranil Wickremesinghe did last week. The man may know nothing about administering a political party but, by god, he can get a road fixed... and by the president’s own ministry, too.

Certainly, Ranil did quite well for himself last week. For one thing, he is still UNP leader. Still. This is a singular achievement. Not for him the stupid, abstract notion of inner-party democracy. Autocracy is much more fun.

Besides, who could fail with a party Constitution like his? The UNP’s party Constitution is to Ranil what the 18th Amendment will one day be to the presidents of Sri Lanka, only better! Sajith Premadasa can caterwaul as shrilly as he wants to but this Ranil, who curiously has an international reputation for being pro-democracy, isn’t going anywhere. He will survive.

And judging by the sheer speed at which that sliver of road was tarred the other day, the status quo suits the government fine. A leader under whose stewardship your main opposition will bomb at each election is complimentary to every other self-preservation mechanism you already have in place. What government in its right mind would not tar a road if this could help sabotage a move against the one person in opposition that it cares deeply about?

So in the middle of a blazing Wednesday morning, the Ministry of Highways rolled out the heavy machinery and deployed a sizeable workforce to urgently “repair” possibly the very section of Kotte Road that did not need fixing. The ministry later said they restored a two-kilometre stretch but it sure didn’t look like it.

Thick layers of tar were studiously laid on a single track of the road, not both. The section begins about 350 metres to the left of Sirikotha, the UNP party headquarters, and ends about 50 metres to its right. You need a lot of imagination to count that as “two kilometres.” But imagination is obviously something the Ministry of Highways does not lack.

Protest shifted to another location

The police helped. They are nice that way. They can’t catch criminals, especially those confounded grease devils, but they can do stuff like this really well. Anyhow, the police installed barriers at either end to stop motorists from using the main road. Long, winding alternate routes were used to reach destinations, mostly workplaces. The traffic, which was bad to begin with, got worse. The productivity of the labour force evidently had to be sacrificed for a worthier cause.

It worked. Sajith’s faction were to hold a satyagraha – which, as you know, involves sitting down-in front of Sirikotha that day. Unfortunately, the threat of hot road aggregate on their backsides put them off. The protest was shifted to another location. Not that they’re sissies but getting steaming tar pasted to their rears was never part of the master plan. Besides, there was also a court injunction against the protest. Being flung into jail, where the food tastes horrible and you don’t always get a table fan, was not in the master plan either.

The next morning, the heavy machinery remained parked on the roadside. Workers hung around, twiddling their thumbs, scratching their heads, chatting. They had completed the task they were assigned to do. Now what? Tar the other side, perhaps? 

Meanwhile, it was discovered that President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is the minister of highways, was the only person in the country that didn’t know this was going on. His spokesman told media that, “The president has asked for explanations as to why the road leading to Sirikotha was carpeted in a hurry yesterday.” He later clarified that the president did not request a report into the incident but had called on the relevant officials to clarify the situation to him (or some such thing). In any case, it would be useful for the president to be informed about stuff that goes on in his ministries.

Road near Sirikotha re-tarred

Deputy Minister Nirmala Kotelawala later claimed that residents in Kotte had wanted the road near Sirikotha re-tarred, which is why it was done. Really? Just that insignificant 400 metre stretch? And did they only want a single lane repaired? So suddenly and without advance notice? In the middle of the morning? On Wednesday, when Sajith’s faction was scheduled to hold a sit-down protest? In the precise area where the satyagraha was tipped to be held? Do twenty million Sri Lankans actually look that dumb?

In retrospect, there are several lessons to learn from this tragicomedy. First, some deputy ministers do stuff behind the president’s back that could seriously embarrass him. Second, the president doesn’t know everything, despite being in charge. Third, this country has manpower, money, raw material and machinery to waste on tomfoolery. Fourth, the government doesn’t necessarily restore only broken roads under the ‘Maga Neguma’ initiative; perfectly motorable ones will also do. Fifth, many, many, many broken roads will continue to go unrepaired because the Ministry of Highways evidently has better things to do. Sixth, Ranil Wickremesinghe has a friend in the government, if not the president (who didn’t know). 

Seventh, we are pretty sure Gandhi would have squatted on hot tar-jail or no jail.

Courtesy: The LakbimaNews