Last week's Air Lanka debate generated more heat than light and most people were clearly disgusted by the behaviour of their elected representatives brought live to their homes by national television. At least two government ministers have been quoted in the press expressing their reservations about the desirability of having these telecasts on a regular basis for reasons varying from the fear that it would create boredom to the danger of MPs seizing the opportunities of image building that would arise.

A lot of people will agree with the proposition that the vast majority of the people would prefer watching professional actors cast in teledramas rather than see the kind of disgraceful antics they were treated to on the airwaves the other day. In fact, there was one news agency report that said that the phone lines to parliament were jammed by angry callers. They wanted to know why their MPs were allowed to hurl abuse at each other on television. One parliamentary official had responded with a proper reply: "It's voters like you who have sent them to parliament!''

The subject of debate was very serious. A great many doubts had been raised on whether the Air Lanka privatisation had been properly concluded in the best interest of the country. A welter of allegations had fallen thick and fast and in a democracy such as ours, there is no better place than parliament to incisively debate the issues and call those responsible to account if there were irregularities. But the end result has been that a number of very important questions remain unanswered and the public are still as much in the dark as at the beginning.

The opposition, as much as the government, is to blame for this sorry state of affairs. In a debate like this it was the business of the opposition to clearly and pointedly raise the questions that beg for an answer and ensure that they get authoritative replies. Instead, they allowed the debate to degenerate into an unseemly slanging match and the government was able to use that cover to avoid answering many controversial questions that still remain as wide open as they ever were.

No satisfactory explanation was provided in the debate on why a procurement as big as six Airbuses was concluded by-passing all established government tender procedure. Even after the privatisation, as much as 60 percent of Air Lanka's equity is government owned. It is incredible that Emirates was permitted to negotiate the terms of the purchase of expensive aircraft on their own steam even before the final deal divesting of a minority stake in the airline was sewn up.

The people of Sri Lanka still do not know why widely different figures on the cost of each aircraft has been thrown around. There was one government statement that placed the price per aircraft at U.S. dollars 550 million. After that Prof. G.L. Peiris went on record saying that the price was 600 million dollars. Mr. Ravi Karunanayake, a government MP who has been very active in COPE and other forums on this question, says that airframe of each Airbus will cost US $ 83 million and the engines $ 23 million totaling $ 106 million per aircraft. Simple arithmetic tells us that six aircraft will therefore cost $ 636 million.

What are the people meant to make of all this? Surely questions like this should have been thrashed out conclusively in the debate. But nothing of the sort happened. We see Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle hurling conflict of interest allegations against his PA colleague, Ravi Karunanayake. The latter, we are told, is the director of a company which had bid for Air Lanka business. The editorialist in one government newspaper has found this tidbit "delicious''. The minister has said that he would resign if what he said was found to be untrue. If not, he demanded that the MP resigns.

National television audiences, unfortunately, were not treated to act two of that particular drama when Mr. Karunanayake refuted the allegation which he dissected into several vital components. Each of them, he claimed, was a downright falsehood. Demands that the refutation too be given the same airing over the electronic media as the allegations have now been made. Deputy Speaker Anil Moonesinghe, prudent man, has properly undertaken to consider the representations made and refer them to the Speaker.

We will not speculate on the eventual outcome of all this. But one thing we, like the vast majority of the people of the country, can be very sure of is that nobody is going to resign. There are very few politicians left, if any, of the calibre of the late Mr. Gamani Jayasuriya who never indulged in empty dares but resigned his seat on a matter of principle. Or Mr. Dudley Senanayake who, as Prof. A.J. Wilson recently revealed in the columns of this newspaper, offered to resign when he could not deliver on his promise to the Federal Party in the 1965 parliament.