Merits and demerits of the private sector

Those who need new gas cylinders, according to a letter we published yesterday, are being driven from pillar to post. Although there appears to be no gas shortage as such, new cylinders are not freely available. New cylinders mean an increase in demand for gas and there appears to be a subtle attempt to manipulate the market forces especially the potential demand which will entail a shortage vis a vis a static supply.

Shell Gas may have its own version of the situation. And it might be able to rectify this shortcoming in time to come. No argument is intended here over that.

But at a time the business fraternity has made an attempt to move into the domain of politicians in a bigger way as evident from its effort to help solve the north east problem, the difficulties the potential gas consumers are faced point to some blemishes on their part and may justify cynics who would want to say, "Physician heal thyself."

In an open economy, we are told, everything is determined by market forces and the government has to maintain a low profile and dispose of all state owned ventures. Or in other words, privatisation or aggrandisement of the private sector is the panacea for all our economic ills. This exactly is the global trend and Sri Lanka did the right thing by deciding to swim with the tide, without getting drowned like the bugbear of Uncle Sam, Castro and his socialist allies.

So much so for the factors that led to the liberalisation of our economy, and now we have an open economy with the private sector as the engine of growth. Have the people really benefited from privatisation? There are no queues and goods are freely available and therefore a reasonable answer would be a qualified ‘yes’. They have benefited to some extent. For example, with the collapse of the state monopoly over public transport, there are more buses on roads. Thanks to the private sector, the consumers now have a choice as regards food items, clothing and many other things.

But, at the same time, there are no buses on roads after 10.00 p.m. unlike in the good old days when people went to the cinema for the 9. 30 p.m. show confident of taking a bus back home. Today, people are at the mercy of trishaw or cab drivers after 9. 00 p.m.

Similarly when Colombo Gas was privatised, the promise was to supply gas freely to the people who had developed a thirst for it. The initial euphoria that followed the privatisation of the venture was short - lived, and people are today without cylinders. Worse, it was reported in the media the other day that a rogue of a trader had imported some kind of cereal resembling dhal, unfit for human consumption. Has the plethora of traders’ associations responded to the public outcry by taking any action against the perpetrator of this crime? Isn’t such a trader worse than a terrorist? But for the detection by the Customs of the shipment of ‘poisonous dhal’ thousands of people, it is said would have lost their eyesight or died had they consumed it for years.

Those who have imported milk powder contaminated with radio active particles have also gone unscathed. The people are being exploited by unscrupulous dealers in pharmaceuticals. Most of the drugs that they sell are said to be past shelf - life or of poor quality.

The privatisation of Sri Lanka Telecom and the entry of other private companies into the field of telecommunication, paradoxically has led to ‘sovereignty’ of not the customer but the service provider. Call charges have sky rocketed and facilities provided remain woefully inadequate. And the so-called Telecommunication Regulatory Commission wastes time holding public hearings having put on the backburner most pressing problems of the customer, such as high call charges and lack of maintenance of the facilities and prohibitive initial costs.

Patients admitted to private hospitals may recover but not those who pay their bills from the shock they receive. The much dreaded queues that characterised government hospitals in the past have now shifted to private hospitals. The public suffer silently. Patients who seek channel services are kept waiting for hours on end. They fume and gnash their teeth all in vain as the government has absolved itself of the responsibility of looking after the sick all by itself and therefore has no fear of being toppled as a result of poor health care.

Compared to this appalling situation prevalent in the private sector, especially in the denationalised ventures, shortage of gas cylinders is not,perhaps,worth writing home about. It is only a symptom of a serious illness the country is afflicted with.

Now that the knights of the private sector have put on their shining armour in a bid to rescue the nation, before charging ahead they should also turn the searchlight inward and find what has gone wrong within their own domain. As much as they have a right to intervene in the affairs of the political parties with a view to finding a solution to the national question, it is their duty to heal the festering wounds their kith and kin have inflicted on the public. This must also be made part of their crusade.