CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

The Mess Made by Politicians, Big and Small.

ASOKA S.

It is the first decade of the 21st century. Thirty-eight years ago the United States landed a human on the moon. The Western Block nations headed by the US, Germany, Great Britain, France and so on are continuing to build bigger and bigger buildings, bigger and bigger Computers, bigger and bigger highways and bigger and bigger dreams. Japan continues to rocket ahead with more technological marvels experimenting with a train traveling at 300 miles an hour. Even hitherto developing China, India and Brazil are building great cities as big as New York with their new found wealth and prosperity. Taiwan and Malaysia just completed building two of the worlds tallest buildings only to be overtaken by Abu Dhabi next year with a 110 story sky scraper.

And let us take a look at our Sri Lanka. In 1948 the year we got independence from Britain, we were leading in many social indicators in Asia as well as enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and relative prosperity by Asian standards. Our government and the Civil Service functioned well with a great deal of dignity. Letters written to the government by an everyday person to seek redress was acknowledged and followed up to a conclusion. There was only ONE person representing your constituency in the legislature and everybody knew who their MP was and who to go to if the need arose. Roads were small and few but were in good repair. There was respect to one another. Nobody beheaded the neighbor or hanged his dead body on a lamp post. Politicians did not have private militias but had bodyguards who acted within very limited power and great restraint. Politics were gentlemanly and civilized. They knew full well their sworn duty was to serve the people; not enriching their kith and kin by robbing the people instead.

By the year 2007 the so called leaders of the post independence Lanka have successfully managed to turn the tables upside down. DS, SWRD, Dudley. Sirimavo, JR, Premadasa and finally Chandrika handed over an outright mess to Mahinda. During DS, SWRD and Dudley, Lanka was still unspoiled. Sirimavo ruined the economy with a socialist experiment in the 70's very likely based on her total lack of any experience barring managing a dozen servants in a fast dying aristocratic household. Some people believed that her socialist experiment would have worked. I don't think so. Why because 10 years later even the Socialist block headed by Russia collapsed. Today Russia is a full blown Capitalist jaggernaught probably ashamed of the so called Bolshevik revolution that ended up with Stalin sending millions of Russians to death and East Germans getting shot down by trying to escape to West German prosperity.

Thanks to a supposedly very smart constitution drafted by JR, MP's are up for grabs for the highest bidder. One can belong to one party while serving as a minister in the other party. MP's seats have a price tag running into millions of rupees for themselves just to switch sides with no legal repercussions. Indeed the legislature has turned into an auction house of MP's, a good 107 of them are Ministers. Buddhist monks are busy wheeling and dealings with their latest duty free Benz cars. The head of the nurse's union turned out to be a Buddhist monk too; very likely a crafty man in a monk's robe. Politicians' militias run a parallel street administration extorting from private buses, stands and even the owners. Half of Capital City streets have been turned upside down. Traffic travels opposite direction to the arrows on the streets. Streets are emptied of bodies of fellow Lankans when the President or the Prime Minister travels. It is almost as if the average Lankan has no dignity or not worthy of being on street when the President travels. Get out !! Get Out!! President is coming...!
Cannot the President relocate himself to a suburb and leave his countrymen alone?

Nobody knows how much each MP or minister is worth. There is no mandatory requirement to declare their wealth annually so that the people have a chance to locate the rogues. It is the age of the Internet though...!

Every Lankans dream is to get out so that he or she can fend for his or her family. He can at least dream of buying a small piece of land in their own country at least in the bush; never mind the cities. How on earth can a Lankan making SLR 20000 a month and a family to support compete with a retired single German making SLR 20000 a day to buy the same piece of land. Remember land in Lanka is so expensive and wonder who on earth brought the law to allow foreigners to buy them unless for commercial purposes. Millions of Lankan will end up landless in their own country while foreigners grab the best.

The exodus out of the country is so huge that the largest Forex earner is from the expatriates, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of housemaids enslaving to Arabs for a tuppence. The 107 Ministers will spend over SLR 150 million of this in a month without moving a hair for their personal existence. It is indeed nice for a minister's spouse to get off into Cargills Superstore from the latest PRADA costing SLR 100 laks(but free to her) while a dozen beggars (fellow Sri Lankans) are at the footsteps of the store pleading for a piece of bread. ( the writer personally witnessed this ).

There is not one road (except a short strip or two)that is not broken while tens of thousands of cars vans and trishaws are fighting to drive through. The vast majority of the roads are just a strip of dirt poured over with a thin layer of asphalt. Perhaps the rest of the asphalt is in the nearest hardware store to be repurchased by the same contractor again and so on. Still those 150 lakh politico Pradas and the bodyguards whisk through.

One can go on and on about education, universities, government bureaus, etc., but the list will be endless.

Sri Lanka is on a huge downward spiral due to disastrous leaderships and policies with no hope in site. Lanka needs a revolutionary change in Leadership approach (even the current President can do this because he appears a smart enough leader) to put this house in order. The start can come by cutting the size of the government, making the Executive answerable to the Legislature, making MP cross overs illegal, bringing in a new breed of leaders, introducing the Senate and totally changing the political landscape. Bribery Commision should be independant of politics. Wealth and all business dealings of politicians and senior beaucrats should be available for public record and declared annually. Corrupt politicians should be hounded and jailed for good. Common sense should prevail in all decisions with the average Lankan's well-being in mind.

But do the leadership has the wisdom, courage and the boldness to go for it? Only time will tell.

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