The political system in this country is moving towards an impasse; from such a point there can be no forward movement. While this perilous political obstruction takes place, our politicians, like a group of small children on a merry-go-round, continue to treat themselves to their customary games. In the meantime, our people do not seem to be able to understand the dangers of the political distortions we are faced with at this period of our country’s history.
Recently, a JVP MP raised a question in parliament on the housing and fuel allowances paid to ministers. In reply, Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said that a minister received a housing allowance of Rs.100, 000 per month. It seems that whatever the sum a minister in fact pays out as house rent, he is entitled to the allowance of Rs. 100, 000 per month. We are also told that ministers are entitled to Rs. 190,000 per month as a fuel allowance.
The extravagant privileges enjoyed by the ministers are luxuries the country can ill afford. In addition to this, we are faced with a further burden: the expenditure incurred in the maintenance of the average politician.
No one knows the expenditure the country has to incur in order to maintain ministers, MPs, provincial council members, municipal and urban councillors, and governors and the personal staff of all of them. Although there are details of expenditure on various items at national level, the expenditure on the maintenance of politicians is never divulged in the budget. The cost may be as high as 25% of the gross national revenue, according to a prominent state official.
When asked, during the administration of Chandrika Kumaratunga, to estimate the number of vehicles used by a minister, this same official calculated the number to be 10 vehicles per minister. This figure is currently increasing, rather than decreasing.
Sri Lankan politicians are as extraordinary as the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. They have the right to determine the salaries, the allowances and the privileges they receive. When they want to increase their own salaries, they increase the salaries of the judges of the higher courts, with retrospective effect. After allowing some time to pass, they increase their own salaries to a commensurate level, citing the difference between their own salaries and those of the judges. Although there is an institutional system to determine the salaries of government servants, that institutional system does not have the authority to determine the salaries of politicians, judges and parliamentary staff.
MPs are entitled to a full pension after completion of five years of service. Under President Chandrika Kumaratunga, that concession was extended to benefit the personal staff of ministers as well. In addition to this, she instituted a system by which the personal staff of ministers too could obtain duty free vehicles. The personal staff of ministers are often composed of members of the ministers’ own families. As a result, the ministers, as well as members of their families, become entitled to duty free vehicles. And as the size of the cabinet expands, the additional expense of maintaining the families of the ministers too would have to be born by the country. They too would have to be provided with duty free vehicles, they too would have to be paid salaries and pensions.
There are some MPs who have been unhappy with the US$ 35,000 limit imposed on the value of their vehicles and the limits imposed on the engine capacity. They have tried to overcome the limit imposed on the engine capacity, knowing that if they could have the limit withdrawn, they could import a super-luxury vehicle, and subsequently sell the permit for a higher price. Finally, Buddhist priest MP, Ellawela Medhananda came up with a brilliant idea to exceed the US$ 35,000 limit. He requested permission to place an order for a motor car of higher value, on the basis of paying duty on the difference. Perhaps because it was improper to turn down a request made by a member of the clergy, the authorities granted approval, and now all the other MPs too can enjoy that same benefit.
Under the Customs Ordinance, the sale of duty free vehicles is prohibited for five years. Anyone who violates that regulation is liable to be fined, in addition to paying in full the tax payable to the government for the vehicle in question. The total fine in such an instance could amount to between Rs. 20 million to Rs. 30 million. However, the politicians are the law makers and this Customs regulation does not apply to them. If this law is in fact implemented, a large number of politicians would be subject to punishment.
President Rajapaksa is rightly criticised for appointing an over-large cabinet. But in fairness to the current incumbent, this extravagance is not caused by a personal dysfunction alone, but is also due to a fault inherent in the system. No president under this system has been able to appoint a small cabinet. If a small cabinet is appointed, it will necessitate the creation of posts outside it, with appointments going to a large majority of the governing party. The cabinet under J.R. Jayewardene was small, but during the incumbency of that President, the number of people holding the positions of deputy minister and district minister was large.
President Ranasinghe Premadasa attempted to function with a small cabinet at the beginning of his administration. The impeachment motion that was brought against him made him realise that lack of ministerial posts was one of the main reasons for the dissatisfaction shown by the MPs. With that, President Premadasa shifted to a policy of granting ministerial posts to a majority of the government party MPs.
This policy prevailed during the period of President Chandrika Kumaratunga as well as that of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, to a greater or lesser extent. What President Mahinda Rajapaksa has done has been to pursue, to a considerably greater extent, a policy his predecessors had followed.
A proper reckoning of the expenditure that we incur to maintain the political system would provide us with a picture that would surprise our citizens. The fault lies less with individuals than with a system that subjects the country to a vicious cycle that cannot easily be overcome.
Both the rightist J.R. Jayewardene and the leftist Colvin R. de Silva were responsible for this state of affairs.
Colvin abolished the Soulbury Constitution and conferred omnipotence on the parliament. He considered the senate an impediment to the progress of the parliament and abolished the senate. In addition, he did away with the legislative and legal restrictions that had been imposed on the parliament and conferred on it a vast power that was not subject to law.
On the basis of that power, he extended the term of the parliament by two years. On the basis of the same argument, Jayewardene extended the term of the then parliament by six more years.
Jayewardene acquired the omnipotence that Colvin R. de Silva had given the parliament, and gave it to the executive presidency. The parliament is now no longer omnipotent; however the executive president is omnipotent.
In order to take upon himself that power which the parliament originally held, Jayewardene initiated, for parliamentarians, a special mode of paying compensation with public funds. He increased the salaries of parliamentarians as well, and instituted a system by which they could receive a pension after completing five years in office. He also introduced a method by which they would receive a substantial sum of money by giving them two vehicle licenses each. He ensured for them various methods and ways through which money could be made, one of which was to create a system by which, not only the ministers, but also their wives and children would receive pensions. In time, President Jayewardene’s successors took the process further.
It is important to understand the reasons that prompted successive presidents to make this move. The executive president is powerful, but he cannot survive as president without the support of the parliament. The MPs have to be paid for parliamentary support. They have to be paid to an extent that can keep them content. Due to the system of Proportional Representation, it is not possible for any one to have a majority, and a government can be brought down by shifting the loyalty of less than 10 MPs. In order to prevent such an occurrence taking place, those who are in the governing party have to be kept content. And the cabinet too has to be kept content and satisfied, and towards those ends they too have to be rewarded adequately.
The entire system runs of the productivity of the incomes earned by each individual. This is not a system built for those who are interested in the progress of the country, but one built for those who are interested in milking the system. Under this structure, politics have become a means of earning a great deal of wealth. Together with their henchmen, those who have black money to spend freely have the capacity to become strong political personalities. Under this system political parties cannot be maintained only by the fees paid by their members. Consequently, the parties have to resort, increasingly, to a position of dependence on barons of black money.
Such barons of black money have the ability to make the governments they have fashioned dance to their tunes. The governments would have to give them whatever they ask for, and what they ask for are the resources of the country. In giving them what they ask for, the governments that come to power would have to act in disregard of the laws and regulations of the land.
Harry Stassen Jayawardene looked after the Bandaranaike family. He also helped generously in the election campaign of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Consequently, when the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation was to be sold, not only President Chandrika Kumaratunga but also Ranil Wickremesinghe had to take action on the basis of a common agreement. A ‘red’ party which had come to know some facts hidden behind that transaction spoke up against it. They too received a sum of Rs. 5 million for their party fund. That stopped their outcry.
All transactions in this country take place in this manner. Consequently, the entire political system has turned into a cancer that invades the core of this country.