      |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Morning Spice by Ginger Are all the Osu Sala outlets in the suburbs kept open on week-ends. Ginger knows certain outlets are not. This negates the very purpose of setting up such an establishment. The private pharmacies too seem to take the attitude that certain microbes and organs of the human system should take a well earned rest on Sundays in particular. Microbes as a rule do not take much note of such biblical edicts. Human organs too are notoriously unreliable and start playing up at the most unexpected moments. How then is a patient who falls ill unexpectedly to get his drugs in case he or she falls ill on a Sunday. Run to the city? All well and good if one is mechanized but if one is not and so has to use public transport it could mean not only being in considerable discomfort for longer than necessary but also in danger of the disease getting hold of one if the patient is unable to knock about because there is no one to bring the drug. Some clinics are also not at full strength on holidays and the regular doctor entrust his work to some stand in. Osu Sala, if one is not mistaken, should serve two purposes. The first is to ensure that drugs are available at fair prices. The second is to give the sick a round the clock service. Tourist boom in China It is the offers made by the Five Star type however that is interesting. Many of them are offering a forty percent discount from this month till the end of the year. The Pudong Shangrila will give you a de luxe room that will normally cost well over 200 dollars for around 140 dollars. Some of these hotels have in-room and internet facilities and satellite TV. Richard McDonald They noticed that many Americans loved the wide open spaces and so they opened a drive in eatery in California that served a low priced meal of hamburgers and french fries. The rest was history. At the time of his death there were over twenty thousand restaurants in over a hundred and ten countries. The burdensome pension payment The ever growing burden of the annual pension payment on the Government budget was first pointed out by Dr. N. M. Perera when he was the finance minister in the Sirimavo Bandara-naike Government. He made all new appoint-ments to the public service to be on Provident Fund basis. By this change the burden of payment of retirement benefits was cast on the Provident Fund, raised for the purpose. However, when the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government was succeeded by the UNP Government of Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, the recruitment of public servants on pension basis was recom-menced and even the public servants re-cruited on provident fund basis earlier were converted to fully pensionable status. However, as the private employers in 1958 were not legally bound to provide for their workers when they were too old for work, the government rectified the position by enacting the Em-ployees Provident Fund, Act No. 15 of 1958. By this act every employer was legally required to contribute to the fund a given proportion of the wages paid to his workforce. In this manner the National Provident Fund was raised for the benefit of workers in their old age. However, no cor-responding fund to guarantee the payment of pension to the public servants was raised by way of a legal enact-ment, as the pension payment was the responsibility of the government itself. Under the Soulbury Commission Consti-tution given to Lanka by the 1946 Lanka Constitution order in council of the United Kingdom Parliament on 15th May 1946, Section 65 made the payment of pension of public servants a charge on the Consolidated Fund of the Government. Now the Consolidated Fund of the Government is the account in the General Treasury, which holds all the money revenue of the Government and any payment out of it could be made only as approved by the Annual Appropriation Act of the Government (Annual Budget) or any other special legal provision. The section 65 of the Order in council is a special legal authority to pay the pensions of the public servants, without including it in the Annual Appropriation Act. Under this legal provision parliament cannot refuse to pay the pensions since its authority is not needed in view of section 65. The Sirimavo Bandaranaike Constitution enacted in 1972 also by Section 109 provided for the payment of the pension of public servants from the Consolidated Fund. It is Mr. J. R. Jayewardene's Constitution enacted in 1978 that failed to make the pension payment of the public servants a charge on the Con-solidated Fund or in the alternative make other suitable provision by way of raising a pension payment fund to meet the accumulated liability of the pension payments. The pension payment to the public servants is not a charitable allowance paid on compassionate grounds to elderly people incapable of work. It is a contractual payment for work done. A public servant is recruited into the pensionable service under a given set of conditions stated in the Government Gazette making the offer of employment. One of these conditions is the pensionable status. When a recruit accepts this offer a formal agreement is entered with the Government. Under such a service contract, when the public servant had performed his part of the contract by serving the Government for a specified period he becomes eligible for a pension. He has now earned his pension under the service contract and it is up to the Government to perform its part of the service contract by paying the pension till the death of the contracting party. Should the Government now contemplate to refuse the payment of the pensions, after the employees had earned the pension, it would amount to a breach of the existing contracts and the Government will be legally liable to pay damages. This position is explained in detail in my letter published in 'The Island' of 14th May 1996 under the caption 'The Pension Rights of Public Servants'. Now what are the options available to the Government to meet the ever burdening pension liability, without violating its legal contractual obligation to the pensioner or without committing a deliberate human rights violation by depriving a class of elderly citizens their means of survival, the pensions! If the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd. could offer a 'Yashtiya' pension scheme to unlimited numbers of people on the payment of a given premia the Government also should be able to insure and secure the pension payment on such an assessed scheme of premia payment. I would suggest the Government to come to an understanding with the Insurance Corporation Ltd to take over the full payment responsibility of the public service pensions of the Government, paying a sufficient premium to cover the liability. It could be structured as follows:- (i) The Government should agree to meet the pension liability say, at an assessed rate of 20 per cent of the pensionable public servants' salary for each year and contribute such sum to Pension Fund A/C No. 1 with the Insurance Corporation Ltd, as premia for the eventual pension payment to presently serving public servants who are taken as a group called Pension Fund No. 1 A/C beneficiaries. 50% of this sum may be paid in Government Pension Bonds 7 1/2% (ii) The present pension drawing public servants may be called Pension Fund No. 2 A/C beneficiaries. The actual pension due to these Pension Fund No. 2 A/C beneficiaries should be computed for each year and 50 per cent such sum should be provided in the Annual Appropriation Act and paid to the Insurance Corporation Ltd. Pension Fund No. 2 A/C, to meet the payment of the pensions of this group of pensioners. The balance 50 per cent of pension due will be paid to Insurance Corporation Ltd. in Government pension Bonds 7 1/2 per cent. These Bonds received by the Insurance Corporation Ltd will be sold to the Pension Fund No. 1 A/C at face value and the cash received utilised to pay the pensions. (iii) As the pension fund No. 2 A/C beneficiaries get depleted with deaths, in about 20 years or less this account may be non operational. (iv) When Pension Fund No. 1 A/C beneficiaries in due course retire their pensions and com-muted pensions will be met by the Insurance Corporation Ltd. from Pension Fund No. 1 A/C. In this manner the Government could divest itself of the pension payment burden and continue to pay say, 20 per cent of the pensionable public servants' salary bill as premia to the Insurance Corporation Ltd. Even private employers are required to pay 20 per cent of their wages bill monthly to the Provident Fund A/C by the Employees Pro-vident Fund Act No. 15 of 1958. D. W. Edirisooriya. Sinhala grievance - the Metadata... The Eskimos, the Maoris, the Aborigines, the Red Indians, the Samis and the Sinhalese from a unique group of people with a multitude of problems common to all the individual groups - 1. They are all indigenous peoples. 2. All are impoverished due to lack of land 3. They are among the rapidly disappearing races in the world today. 4. Their priceless heritage will be on display in the museums of Berlin, London, New York. The principal reason for this disappearance is the non-availability of land either the land becomes hostile due to natural causes and becomes unable to sustain life. Another reason is the capture of land by invading forces followed by total decimation of local inhabitants as in the case of fifteen million Red Indians in North America. In our own country, entire villages were set on fire and thousands of Sinhala people were murdered and their lands were converted to tea estates which are now being controlled by Thondaman and his gang. Metadata literally means data about data. Metadata tells you what your data means where it comes from and how it is represented. And, now for the metadata about the Sinhala grievance Are the Sinhalese people exempted from the UN Human Rights Charter? I wish some human rights activist, a cat's eye or a bull's eye could enlighten the readers on this matter. Is it not a total betrayal of the Sinhala people if the so called Devolution package becomes a reality? Rome is sacred to the Catholics, so is Jerusalem to the Jews and so is Mecca to the Muslims. The tiny island in the Indian Ocean known by a variety of names over the centuries, 65000 sq. km is the only place where the Sinhalese lived for over 25 centuries, every sq. mm of this island is scared to the Sinhalese. From Devinuwara in the South to Point Pedro in the North it was a land where Buddhism flourished in its pristine purity and every Sinhalese was a Buddhist until the advent of the Portugese in 1505. Thus it is a non negotiable fact that this island is the hallowed land of the Sinhala Buddhists. But unlike the Serbs in Kosova the Sinhalese have no plans to drive away the non-Sinhalese but like their forefathers are prepared to share this island home with all who live here, That is the Buddhist way of life!!!
Source: Department of Census and Statistics Provisional figures for 1986 S. Perera In the past few weeks there has been a lot of comment in your paper on the handling or rather mishandling of strays. Ginger also had a comment in his colomn. The suggestion to anaesthelise strays and give them anti-rabies injections is more than this country will undertake. Besides, roads are meant for people not for amalgamation of strays or pet-dogs allowed to stray, who bark at you, try to bite you and if you are carrying meat, sniff around you. I am clearly not a dog-lover. My great grandfather died of hydrophobia having been bitten by a stray who walked into his house. An interesting anecdote hangs thereto, which I would not repeat out of respect for him. In spite of his money or his good deeds, the consequence of that bite could not be averted as he preferred native medicine to going over to India for the injection against hydrophobia which was not available here in Sri Lanka then. I strongly object to strays. I strongly object to pet dogs allowed to stray on streets, I had no doubt that both categories should leave this world instantly under the prick of a cyanide injection. But now my fellowmen have raised such a volley of protest at killing strays and on the way they are killed that my thoughts are 'hung up' halfway. Even if identifiable as belonging to a specific house, a bite from a dog according to doctor's orders means checking on the health of the dog till two weeks elapse. This I have done on behalf of a domestic and is most embarrassing, as no one likes the suspicion that the dog he owns may be coming into rabies. To come to the point of my letter, I offer to dog-lovers of this country the privilege of standing permanent host to a stray dog which is trying hard to domicile with us, and I will have none of it. One gardener has no protecting wall and the house has three open verandahs. It thinks it is free to use any one of them at will. Apart from my angry voice the only other weapon I have used is a single stick of a cracker lit and thrown towards it. Dog-lovers, do not hold your hands in horror! The stick of the cracker is not intended to reach the dog. I rely on its noise to frigthen the dog away. This anyway is poor attack, as I myself am wary of crackers and by the time I collect cracker, stick, candle and match box the dog is gone. It is obvious that it is an abandoned pet. Abandoned pets have tried to lodge with us before. After weeks of difficult survival picking up bits here and there, it kept good form till now, when it looks as if mange is starting along its spine. The dog is medium brown. I would not be able to say who his father, mother or earlier ancestors could have been. It is of medium build, not as small as a Pekinese nor as big as an Alsation. It was quite a decent animal really till it started its mange. It is a dog that is lost. Its incessant roaming makes that clear -from me to the lane on my left and onto the road ahead and upto the vicarage, then a right about turn and passing me round the corner with its massive rubbish heap into the compound of the neighbour on my right and through the fence back to me. It is seeking the stability it once had. Dog lovers, doesn't this story touch your heart? If you are interested, I live at 7, Curon Jacob Mendis Mawatha, Idama, Moratuwa I cannot guarantee that the dog will be there when you come, but it is sure to be within a home. Chitra Jayasuriya, Plantation workers and company shares In recent times some of the plantation trade union leaders, most notably Mr. O. A. Ramiah and Mr. Saumyamoorthi Thondaman, have pointed out that plantation workers are being induced to sell the shares that have been issued, thus losing whatever rights and privileges that they enjoyed as shareholders of the companies that they work for. Mr. Ramiah went so far as to demand that the government take immediate step to declare the transfer of shares issued to plantation workers null and void. Mr. Thondaman has in a more realistic vein sought to advise the plantation workers not to sell their shares. While it is not difficult to understand the concerns of both these leaders it is very difficult to understand why neither of them has so far made any attempt to institutionalise some process by which the owners of these shares can - with or without combining with other minority share holders - exercise their rights as shareholders jointly. Such joint action may entitle them to representation on the boards of these companies from where they can then influence corporate strategies and participate in processes of policy formulation and implementation. It is also possible that should such an initiative succeed, minority shareholders in other non plantation companies may also adopt similar strategies to their advantage and this will contribute to the credibility and attractiveness of the Colombo Stock Exchange. It may be that preoccupation with trade union issues or a lack of skilled advisors and strategists, has rendered these leaders oblivious to this option - despite its having been articulated on several occasions since the privatisation of the plantations came under consideration - but there is no reason why they should not now initiate attempts towards its exercise. Nirmalan Dhas, |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |