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Morning Spice by Ginger A businessmen had a similar experience what Ginger had only fell for it and lost his money unlike Ginger whose sixth sense saved him that day. The businessman had gone to Pettah to make some purchase or other he had locked his car and was about to set off for the shop. He had in mind when two men on a motor cycle came up to him and asked for his identity card and when he produced it they wanted to see what was in his pocket and this unsuspecting victim pulled out what the wad of thousand rupee notes he had with him. They grabbed most of his notes and sped away. They were considerate snatch thieves as they left some money with the victim. Ginger is fairly sure this was the same pair he encountered near his home because when he told them it was a good try but to go and find another sucker they just grinned and rode away. These must be desperate young men with no source of income but that however does not mean that the public should be exposed to such dangers. As a rule nobody without an uniform makes security checks. The police should warn the public that they should not show their identity cards other than at check points or to policemen in uniform in police vehicles in case the mobile units are out. Durga pooja in
Calcutta Actually Hindus all over the world celebrate Durga during this period but the pooja in Calcutta is certainly the most colourful and best attended all over the world. There is dancing music and general celebrating during this period and large sculptures of this goddess holding a spear is displayed till they wish her goodbye by throwing her into the river. Minister of Energy open your eyes One of the many sources of Foreign Exchange earnings of Sri Lanka is from the supply of Fuel and Provisions etc. to ships that call at our ports and many may not be aware of this fact. The Bunker Brokers not only bring in valuable Foreign Exchange but also have granted employment to a large number of citizens of various sections of the population. Of late the state sector corporation which enjoys the monopoly of Marine Fuel supplies has gradually increased the price of the grade of fuel which is in very big demand and for which ships call at Colombo regularly. The present position is that ship owners and principals have come to a decision that the prices are exorbitant resulting in ships avoiding Sri Lankan ports for bunkers, which they earlier favoured very much, due to the competitiveness of prices of fuel and provisions etc. The reason in the air for the large increase in price is said to be to reserve fuel for the operation of generators. The authorities seem to be unaware of the fact that this shortsighted action of theirs has deprived Sri Lanka of Foreign Exchange not only from fuel supplies but also from supply of various provisions that ships require. This has also resulted in some Bunker Brokers cutting down on their staff thereby adding to the unemployment problem which has become cancerous in this country. The problem of high prices of Marine Fuel will in the long run be a blow to Sri Lanka’s Foreign Exchange income as ship owners and principals will prefer themselves with other ports where the present prices of Marine Fuel is about 50% to 60% of the price here. The Corporation has very recently decreased the prices of 02 grades of Marine Fuel which are in lesser demand and required in very small quantities by ships may be due to realising their folly. It is high time the Minister of Energy opened his eyes and directed the highups in the corporation, who may be have their affiliations elsewhere, that by their haphazard and arbitrary actions the country is losing Foreign Exchange thereby breaking the back of the economy which is dwindling due to the fall in some sources of Foreign Exchange earnings. It must be realised that even if fuel has to be imported for running of generators the loss in Foreign Exchange earnings due to the increase in price of Marine Fuel will be far more as ships that call our ports not only do so for Fuel but also for taking in of provisions, water and sometimes crew changes all of which bring in exchange. The earlier remedial action is taken the better before reaching a point of no return as a third world country like ours has to earn Foreign Exchange as much as possible and Minister of Energy holds the key in this aspect. P. I. Yasen Being seated in the lobby of a plush hotel in Colombo waiting for a friend to join me and my good friend one evening, I experienced the following, which prompted me to share the same with your readers. There were three fair skinned gentlemen who were seated almost next to us, speaking quite aloud. They spoke a foreign language, which we did not understand. That language certainly was not English that much we understood. Next, they were joined by two other gentlemen who were fair skinned too, but belonging to a different nationality. They greeted each other now, in English and introduced themselves to each other smiling very pleasantly too. My friend I understood that those five foreigners were striking a business deal involving ‘’real big’’ money. And their English as we understood was very poor and was in need of a lot of improvement. But, as we understood again, it certainly wasn’t a hindrance to any of them to get on with their business deal. After a while one of the foreigners glanced directly at me, and asked me whether I was a Sinhala, in his rather broken English. My answer being in the affirmative he further questioned me as to whether I knew Sinhala at all. Taken quite by surprise at this rather unusual question, I said ‘’certainly’’, feeling quite awkward. ‘’Good’’, the foreigner said, standing up and stretching his arm towards me with a ‘’big’’ smile. His name sounded something like ‘’Ching Chong’’ and he introduced me to the other foreigners as well who had names similar to his and quite different as well. His next question was whether I could please translate a Sinhala word into English for them. (This had nothing to do with their business transaction). After I obliged him, he said he was surprised that I knew my Sinhala well, for he claimed, he had never heard us speaking English. He further said that he thought that the upper class Sinhalese did not know their native language at all, or did not use it at all. He further said ‘’we speak our native language all the time, but when the need arises we use English as a link language.’’ He said the above in broken English. I learnt two things that evening after speaking to the above foreigner, and the first one was that there is no need to be ashamed of one’s inability to express oneself in a foreign language. (English certainly is a foreign language for us). And the second one was that one should not use a foreign language as a sword to differentiate one from the rest. Rather it should be used to make one self understood by another, who does not speak one’s language. Since it was a fair skinned foreigner, we did not laugh at his broken English. But, if it was a local I am sure we would have, because the majority of us who speak in English in Sri Lanka believe, the rest who do not speak proper English are somewhat inferior, and that they should be laughed at. The above foreigner made me aware of the foolishness of our thinking and also made me very embarrassed when he questioned me whether I knew my native language, Sinhala at all. I feel all Sinhalese should know their native language, though they might choose to use any other language in their day to day life. And more particularly I feel that it should not be a laughing matter when a native makes a mistake when using a foreign language (in this instance ‘’English’’.) Thushani Dayaratne Callousness among public servants ‘Arul’ writes in ‘The Island’ of 11th September that the Public Service is callousness personified. I would like to modify that characterisation somewhat and say that what he says is true, by and large, of today’s public servants as opposed to those of yesteryears, but I have personally met several present-day public officials who are splendid examples of human beings who consider their first duty to be of service to the people. I admit, however, that their number compared to the entirety of those who would come under the term “the Public Service” is relatively small. What is not generally recognised, until on the one hand, one joins the public service and takes one’s work seriously or on the other hand, one is a helpless member of the public and has some work to get done by a government department is the extent of the power that a public servant wields. Presidents and Prime Ministers and their cabinet colleagues can just sit in their offices and read newspapers and novels and lead a life of leisure, if only public servants whose function it is to give a helping hand to the masses to solve their day-to-day problems, will perform their duties with sympathy and dedication. Those of us who have been in the public service for a long period and have not looked upon our work as yet another job, know, at first hand, how helpful we can be to the ordinary man in his efforts to cope with the problems he is confronted with in day-to-day living. What gives me great satisfaction in my retirement, is when I come across occasionally, letters of appreciation sent to me by persons whom I have been privileged to help, in some way or other, years ago, whenever they had a problem which could be sorted out only by a public official. Even so, I must confess, from my personal experience, which is fortified by what others tell me, that Arul is justified in castigating the present day public servant as being, generally, callous one of the reasons why politicians have become so important in society, today, is because “the wretched of the earth” of this country are forced to go behind and hang around them to get their elementary needs attended to. Courtesy, politeness, friendliness, and similar character traits are foreign to many a public servant of today. Some of them at the very top of the bureaucracy, are just plain liars. I write from personal experience. There have been many occasions when I have telephoned top men in corporations, secretaries to ministries, and heads of departments, not to get anything done for myself, but to bring to their notice that things are not all that good in their establishments and to suggest remedial action. They will take down my telephone number and faithfully promise to ring me back. But they will invariably, like most politicians, ravage on their promise. Just a few days ago, I was compelled to complain to the Ministry of Public Administration about the conduct of a Secretary to a Ministry who had become a consummate liar. I find it a fact that the generality of public officials (here, I refer not only to those who work in government departments, but also to those who man corporations, state banks, local bodies, the police service and similar institutions) lack concern for their fellow-beings, especially the more unfortunate ones, whose servants, as the very term ‘public servant’ implies, they are expected to be although that is what they are paid for by the state, to be some of them lack even elementary decency and politeness. Many are positively rude and over-bearing in their attitude to the public who come to see them to get some problem attended to. ‘Arul’ himself relates an incident where a letter written by him to the President in 1994 has not been replied to date by the secretary to the Ministry of Tourism to whom it had been referred for a response within three months! This is a common complaint. In May, this year, I personally met the Secretary to an important Ministry, concerned with the promotion of right values, among other things, in this country and asked him whether his ministry would have any objection to a course of action which, Avadhi Lanka, of which I am a founder member and is engaged in the promotion of public morality and civic responsibility, proposes to take. In early June, I confirmed the request in writing and handed the letter personally to the Secretary. To this day, despite repeated reminders by telephone, I have not been given the courtesy of a reply. All that the secretary tells me is that my letter is in his drawer and that he will attend to the matter soon. But of course from what he himself has told me, during this period the secretary has had the time to do two foreign trips. On the drop of a hat, they can find time to go on such joints! But no time to reply a letter. A case of utter callousness and inhumanity was brought to my notice recently by a friend. The crippled widow of a much respected permanent secretary of years gone by, who had passed away over an year ago, had signed her pension application form and sent it through her son to the Divisional Secretary of the area. Despite the fact that the son had told the august personality that his mother could not come personally to sign the form in that personality’s presence because, even in her own home, she got about only in a wheel chair, the officer concerned had insisted that she be brought to the third floor of the secretariat, if action was to be taken on the application. Such heartlessness is not uncommon and unusual among many of today’s public officials. Fortunately, this particular case was brought to the notice of the Director of Pensions by me and he was good enough to set the matter right promptly. Not long ago, a lady who had been a teacher in a leading girls school in Colombo, now resident in Canada, had to come all the way from that country to Sri Lanka merely to get her pension application form sent by a provincial education office to the Pensions Department. The officials of that provincial education office, including its director, were so callous and unhelpful. Even the Secretary to the Ministry of Education to whom I complained, at the request of a mutual friend, could not help because he was told bluntly that only the Provincial Ministry of Education could give instructions in the matter — a sign of the things to come if the contemplated devolution proposals go through! Much is made of the fact that politicians interfere in a big way, with the work of public officials. Undoubtedly they do — there is no dispute about it. But, in my 36 years as a public servant, I cannot think of a single instance when a politician has ever asked me to be rude or in polite towards a member of the public or be callous and heartless towards him. Most often politicians interfere purely because public officials are unresponsive to the woes and miseries of their fellow beings. I can vouch, from personal experience, that they are very appreciative of a public servant who solves the problems of the people at his level, without the people being compelled, by bureaucratic indifference, to seek the assistance of politicians to get a simple job done. A public servant has to have his heart in the right place if he is to succeed in warding off the politician from interfering in his day-to-day work. The problem today is that the public find it a Himalayan task even to meet a public official, let alone get a job done. The fact of the matter is that many heads of departments and ministry secretaries are plain nincompoops, incompetent and inefficient, unprofessional and ineffective. The reason — they hold their posts because of political patronage. The United Front Government dug the grave of an impartial and efficient public service that is free from partisan political control, when in 1972, they scrapped the Public Service Commission and arrogated to itself (i.e. the cabinet) the right to appoint Heads of Departments and fill other important vacancies in the Public Service. The successor UNP government did nothing to undo the damage. In fact they made the fullest use of the change effected by the UF government, to get their own dirty work done. I venture to think that the real reason for the near total break-down of the administration today is that neither party is interested in good governance, which means giving top priority to solving the problems of the people and taking care of the larger interests of the country. All that both parties are interested in, once elected to office, is to remain there as long as possible and loot the country and enjoy the spoils. For them the public service exists only for this purpose. That is the reason why they appoint to important posts in the administration men who have no backbone and are ever-ready to carry out the wishes of their political masters. The politicians would not mind their ever-faithfully in the bureaucracy being callous to the public and indifferent to their welfare, so long as these stooges do their bidding. The country can be bailed out only by individuals both in the political world and the administration who are imbued with values entirely different from those that prevail now, the essence of which has been referred to as the “me only syndrome”. How this is to be brought about Heaven only knows! (The writer is an activist of the Avadhi Lanka Movement) I was glancing through Nalin de Silva’s article “The only alternative” (The Island 30.09.98 page 19) when I was astounded by the following statement “Marxism in the final analysis is a weapon created in the west to suppress nationalism in the non western world.” In other words Karl Marx and the international Marxist Movement were in actual fact puppets of the big bad imperialist west of the 19th century! One only has to consider the long list of virulently anti western nationalist — Marxist tyrants like Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Mengitsu, Castro and Ortega etc. to realise how patently false this “thesis” is. If it was true it would mean that the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact (the greatest military machine in world history) the cold war, and the various brutal Marxist anti western “Wars of Liberation” were all part of a western conspiracy to hoodwink the people of the third world! Such a contention is as preposterously absurd as the theory (still favoured by some crackpot anti semites) that Hitler, the Nazi party, the holocaust and world war 2 were all engineered by the leaders of the “global zionist conspiracy” to speed up the recreation of Israel! Surely the good doctor must realise that such extreme ideological paranoia is unworthy of someone like you. Since the learned gentleman seems to relish in theories of sinister “anti Sinhala Buddhist conspiracies” I would like to suggest a scenario that may astonish even him. The Old Testament of the Bible mentions a people called the Elamites who lived in what is now southern Iran. Whenever the kingdom of Elam was strong militarily it sent out its army to occupy the Middle East. The Elamites like the Sumerians kept their records on baked clay tablets. Archaeologist have deciphered the Elamite language and found that it belongs to the Dravidian linguistic group! Now is it possible that the current “Eelam Wars” are part and parcel of a 3000 year old Zionist — Elamist-Christian conspiracy? How diabolical! I appeal to the good doctor to investigate this matter with the aid of his “Jathika Chintanaya” think tank and enlighten us. S. L. David. Inland Revenue does it! again! Even to those who have clearly stated that they were not liable to pay income tax the Department of Inland Revenue has sent a great deal of forms thereby increasing its work and the work of the Postal Department besides wasting several forms and stationery,and it is the general public who has to pay for all that wastage! Last year I suggested, through your esteemed journal, that the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue recovers at least the cost of wasted stationary from the officers concerned. If he had done that the foolish blunder of wasting forms could have been stopped from being repeated this year too. When will the Inland Revenue Department learn from its mistakes? A Reader Ombudsman The Labour Department granted me an award of payment of Rs. 18,375. The company concerned had remitted this amount by cheque No. K946349 dated 12-12-97. The Labour Department had sent the cheque to the Central Bank on 05-01-1998. Since then, I have gone to Central Bank and the Labour Department to and fro several times in order to collect the balance sheet and to claim the said amount. The Labour Department is unable to decide or help me since they have sent the cheque to the Central Bank. “The Central Bank officials are unable to trace the receipt of this cheque or give me a proper explanation.” I presume the said amount had been realised accordingly in the account holders A/C. Now, it has taken over eight months and I am helpless to find out as to what happened to this payment, please advise. A. V. A. Ramiah. |
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