| by Tisaranee
Gunasekara
“We can neither ignore the
catastrophes that affect us nor simply leave their solution to others”
Orhan Pamuk (For Rushdie)
( November 30, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Hours after Sri
Lanka became a satellite-owning nation, a train collided with a three-wheeler
at an unprotected railway-crossing in Ambanpola, killing 6 people, including 4
children.
There are around
900 unprotected railway-crossings in Sri Lanka, which cause several accidents a
month. According to railway authorities protective measures are not possible at
these death-traps due to lack of funds. The regime, which has the wherewithal
to own a satellite and is planning to build a network of express-ways
crisscrossing the island, cannot spare any money to provide basic rail gates for
unprotected railway-crossings.
That is Rajapaksa
governance – irrationally inane; concerned only with the interests and needs,
whims and fancies of the Ruling Family and their kith and kin. Whatever the
Ruling Siblings and their nearest and dearest want, they must have, from untrammelled
power to garish spectacles, from a budget airline and a satellite to an
impeachment. Power is their plaything and money is no object.
Mihin Lanka is the
most expressive symbol of this Family-first mode of governance and its mounting
costs to the nation. According to the Auditor General’s report, Mihin Lanka’s
losses for the current financial year amount to Rs. 2 billion. The same government
will spend just Rs. 1billion on child development and women’s affairs and Rs.
437million on re-settlement in 2013.
Again according to
the AG’s report, the cumulative losses of this Rajapaksa airline, in its 5 year
existence, amount to Rs. 8.5 billion. With that money, every Mihin passenger could
have been given a free ticket and probably a free meal as well! That may have
cost the nation less than this endless financial pandering of a white woolly
mammoth.
Though Mihin never made a profit (or broke-even) in its life, its
directors increase their own salaries with gay abandon: “Although the company
is running at a continuous loss, the annual remuneration paid to the six-member
Board of Directors have increased over the years. Rs. 11 million has been paid
as remuneration last year – an increase on Rs.4,9 million paid for the previous
year” (Daily Mirror – 27.11.2012).
The CEO of the perpetually loss-making Mihin, Kapila Chandrasena, is also the
CEO of the national carrier. He gets paid Rs. 500,000 per month by Mihin and Rs.
500,000 per month by Sri Lankan – a grand total of one million rupees per month
from public funds (compare this with the salary of a university professor, for
example).
The following table
provides a bird’s eye-view of Mihin’s performance and its cost to the nation:
|
Year
|
Treasury Grants
(Rs. Million)
|
Financial Year
|
Losses (Rs. Billion)
|
|
2007
|
207
|
2007/8
|
3.1
|
|
2008
|
500
|
2008/9
|
1.3
|
|
2009
|
2,882
|
2009/10
|
1,2
|
|
2010
|
1,508
|
2010/11
|
940 (million)
|
|
2011
|
406
|
2011/12
|
1.9
|
|
20012
|
507
|
|
|
|
Total
|
6,010
|
|
8.7
|
So Mihin has devoured 6 billion rupees of public funds in its five
year existence.
The Chairman of this financial Bermuda-triangle is the same as the
Chairman of Sri Lankan Airlines. He is Nishantha Wickremesinghe, Presidential
brother-in-law, and the man who publicly admitted that he is harbouring a stash
of smuggled foreign currency – and got away with it.
Mihin’s real
performance is coming to light because we still have an independent Auditor
General. Some years ago, the Rajapaksas tried to install an acolyte as the AG,
but retreated (for the time being) in the face of stiff opposition from within
the Auditor General’s department. Once the impeachment-travesty is over and the
Rajapaksas have their very own chief justice, they will move to obliterate the
few remaining non-Rajapakasised spaces in the Lankan state, such as the Auditor
General’s Department. Once thos AG’s Department becomes like the other AG’s
Department (that of the Attorney General, who is yet to instruct the police to implement
the arrest order against parliamentarian-cum-Rajapaksa-acolyte Duminda Silva), Mihin
can become the most profitable airline in the world. Abracadabra!
Mihin’s sorry saga
is symbolic and symbiotic of Rajapaksa-First policy making. The 18th
Amendment, the Divineguma Bill, the gargantuan military and the impeachment,
for instance, are aimed at strengthening Rajapaksa rule and ensuring dynastic
succession. Mihin, like the unsuccessful bid to host the Commonwealth Games,
the 2013 Commonwealth Summit, the MRMR Port and the Mattala Air Port, is a behemothic
sop for the Olympian vanity of the President. Then there are night-races and
tax-free racing cars for Namal Rajapaksa and a satellite-cum-space programme
for Rohitha Rajapaksa. If Sri Lanka suddenly decides to become the world-leader
in ice-hockey, engage in Saturn-exploration or buy the world’s biggest aircraft-carrier,
it will because some Rajapaksas has a fancy in that direction.
According to ‘Sri Lanka Human
Development Report – 2012’, “Public investment on
education fell from a peak of 2.7 percent of GDP in 2006 to 1.9 percent in 2010”.
Sri Lanka spent more on education during the war than she is doing during post-war.
This insanely irrational development makes perfect sense when considered in the
context of Familial Rule. The Rajapaksas are not interested in education;
naturally. They are interested in beefing their military might and implementing
megalomaniacal projects. And that is where the peace dividend is going.
Knowing the costs and dangers of Rajapaksa
politics and Rajapaksa economics, are we willing to risk Rajapaksa justice?
Rajapaksa Law
Rajapaksa
leadership has strict policies to control the growth of family power within the
SLFP. For instance, a close cabinet-ministerial kin cannot become a chief
minister. This excellent rule applies to all SLFPers, except the Rajapaksas.
And in that exception, its real aim becomes clear: preventing the growth of another
SLFP political family which can challenge the Rajapaksas, someday.
The
aim of Rajapaksa laws will not be better governance or greater order; the aim
of Rajapaksa laws will be shoring-up Rajapaksa power and punishing Rajapaksa
opponents. This is evident in the conduct of the police and the Attorney
General’s department which become deaf and blind when a Rajapaksa kith or kin
commits a crime while vengefully persecuting Rajapaksa opponents. This is
manifest in the way the impeachment is being conducted. This is obvious in the
scurrilous pamphlet against the CJ.
Post-impeachment, unjust laws will join despotic
politics and irrational economics. Rajapaksa kith and kin will be able to commit
any crime without ever having to fear the courts. Rajapaksa opponents will be
hounded, incarcerated and perhaps even executed, perfectly legally (since the
hangman is to make a comeback soon). The resurgence of Northern dissent –
manifested in the recent protests by Jaffna students - will be used to give a
patriotic coating to these bad laws.
For
those Lankans with an adequate income, island-life is still mostly good. But
good life cannot survive for long, in the company of bad economics and bad
politics. And good life would be impossible in a country which is a breeding
ground for bad laws and perverted courts.
In the end the impeachment is really about us,
our security and our future. Are we going to allow the Rajapaksas to do to the
judiciary what they have done to politics and economics?
Are we going to prove that there is no sleep
like the feigned sleep of the cowardly and the indifferent?
