ජනාධිපතිනිය දූෂිත ද?
As the President offers to answer opposition charges in Parliament herself, Ivan argues that a leader must dispel public suspicion created by her inner circle. He sets out the evidence that BOI chairman Thilan Wijesinghe sought a $1 million bribe over the Galle flour mill, Rajan Asirwatham’s conflicted role in the Kotagala plantation sale, the unseen influence of Ronnie Peiris behind highway and Diyawanna projects, and the government’s refusal to release ministers’ asset declarations.
වලව් මාලිගා විවාදය
Ranil Wickremesinghe attacked the Rs. 2,500 million presidential palace and its imported oak, marble and chandeliers; Mangala Samaraweera replied that the Bandaranaikes, born in walawwas, need no palaces. Ivan distinguishes royal palaces from the walawwas of radala nobility, notes that the Bandaranaike and Jayewardene fortunes rested on land granted for helping the British in 1815, 1818 and 1848, citing James Rutnam and Kumari Jayawardena, and says Horagolla is humbler inside than Temple Trees.
තමන්ට රජ සැප ඇත්නම් රට මකබෑවී ගියත් කම් නැතැයි සිතන ඇමතිවරු
Despite the President’s circular limiting ministers to three vehicles, Planning Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi uses fourteen, including seven kept from the Health Ministry, as does former Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, so the new Health Minister borrows vehicles from the Labour Ministry. The piece also cites S.B. Dissanayake’s granite in his new official residence and warns that the country is at the limit of such greed.
බහිරවයාට ගිය මහා භාරකාර දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව
Ivan explains how the Public Trustee’s Department holds charitable trusts and bequests worth hundreds of millions, then documents spending by the new Public Trustee, N.S.A.S. Seneviratne, whose past he had warned about: a pirith ceremony and air-conditioning from the D.B. Jayatilaka fund, a car bought from the Samarakoon dowry trust, repairs to others’ vehicles, gifts to his children’s school and temples, costly work at Richmond Castle and an unreturned G.L. Peiris fund transfer.
මුදල් අර්බුදයේ නොපෙනෙන පැති කිහිපයක
Ivan examines the floating of the rupee and its fallout: importers ruined by paying at the new exchange rate for goods sold at the old, daily price rises, and likely shortages at the Sinhala New Year. He traces the drain on reserves to war purchases, duty-free vehicles and bulletproof BMWs for politicians, crony privatisation, Air Lanka’s aircraft and fuel subsidies, and falling aid, and doubts that exports, heavily dependent on imported inputs for garments, can close the gap.
ආර්ථික අර්බුදය හා රාජාණ්ඩු දේශපාලනය
As prices soar, the government has used police against a JVP protest while fishermen strike and the UNP turns to agitation. The editorial blames poor governance rather than external factors, citing the flour subsidy before the 1994 election, misdirected Samurdhi payments, unmetered electricity users, lost port revenue after the President moved to the Fort residence, the French locomotive deal and a Rs. 2,500 million new presidential palace, and calls for an open democratic system.
Economic mess? turn the searchlight inwards
The government is trying to put the economy right with extreme measures that have driven prices up and laid an unbearable burden on the poor, and it wants the liquidity crisis understood as something external that it could not control. The internal factor it will not admit is mismanagement.
මහජන මුදල් සමග සෙල්ලම් කිරීම
While development spending is cut, Lake House spent Rs. 5 million printing 290,200 copies of a photograph of the President and her children for free distribution with Silumina and the Sunday Observer during the parliamentary election. The editorial ridicules Chief Government Whip Reggie Ranatunga’s claim in Parliament that the public had asked for it, and says the money would have been better spent on exercise books for poor schoolchildren.
Rehabilitating parliamentarians
A research officer is to be added to every MP’s staff. Adding one will not change the quality of what members do; what is needed is to make the staff already there work properly. What would change it is an institution the public can complain to.
In the name of the democracy, please
The executive presidency split the state power that had been concentrated in parliament, and a large part of it now sits with a directly elected president. Parliament is nonetheless still the country’s supreme political institution — and this is an argument addressed to its new Speaker.