Blame Game
Posted on December 9th, 2024
Sugath Kulatunga
The scarcities and prices of Rice and coconut, plus bad weather, hammer helpless consumers. An impending shortage of salt and another depression in the Bay of Bengal loom large. The opposition is making capital of this distressing situation to blame the government for the plight of the consumers, disregarding that the government assumed parliamentary power only on the 21st of last month and the roots of these problems are traceable to previous regimes.
The problem in Rice can be traced back directly to the policy of the UNP to dispose of the Paddy stores of the Paddy Marketing Board. This restricted the operation of the purchasing paddy under the Guaranteed Price Scheme and allowed free play in the market to large rice millers. They have now become a mafia which controls both the supply and price of rice in the market. President AKD has met the rice millers twice and requested their cooperation to stabilize the market. He has said if they do not cooperate that he has to resort to other options. At the last meeting, he even agreed to increase the controlled price of rice. The government has also decided to import a limited quantity of rice from India.
The President can easily invoke the powers of the Consumer Affairs Authority to control the present quandary. Consumer Affairs Authority ACT 9 of 2003 Article 15 allows action regarding refusal to sell,’ Article 16 provides for action when there is ‘ ‘denial of possession’, and Article 17 can be invoked when there is ‘hoarding. It is noted that the fines to be imposed under these provisions are limited. Regulations must be introduced to Increase the fines for large-scale offenses. Firstly, the President should clean up the scam-ridden CAA.
As far as the issue with coconuts, there is hardly any short-term solution, and no blame can be assigned to the present government. The industry is beset with multiple problems. There had been no serious effort to expand the extent of coconut plantations. There is plenty of space on the coastline to plant coconuts. The existing plantations have not been fertilized in time.
A knee jerk reaction of a former President was the ban on Oil Palm cultivation. The proposal at the time of the decision was to identify 20,000 ha of suitable land in the major plantations for the purpose. This extent was adequate to produce the island’s requirement, which was at that time was 80,000 MT”. Assuming that 50 % of that is coconut oll and it takes 8,000 coconuts to produce one metric ton of crude coconut oil if the proposal was implemented, there would have been a savings of four hundred million coconuts in the market.
The bigger problem is animal damage, where a clash of cultures has come into play. Buddhism abhors any form of destroying life. But during the time of Buddha, there was the killing of pigs and cows. Former President Sirisena stated Wild animals are destroying 35 percent of our farm produce. The number one predator is the monkey. There are over a million monkeys in the country. Each monkey ng destroys at least one bunch of coconuts a day.”
However, environmentalists and animal lovers have made the killing of animals in agricultural lands a rallying point for publicity-oriented demonstrations. These do-gooders are not concerned with the killing of millions of fish. Fish out of water die of suffocation, which is a worse form of death.
The plain truth is that animal damage has escalated since the withdrawal of guns from the farmers by an illegal circular issued by a former secretary of defense. Not that farmers killed every animal invading their property. A blank shot now and then was enough to keep monkeys away. Monkeys are very intelligent animals. They can recognize even the human wielding a gun. The very sight of the person is the cue for them to withdraw.
Sugath Kulatunga