By  Neville de Silva

Longing to come back home

Life returning to normal in Jaffna

It is not that he has not been to his homeland since settling down in Britain. He has been to Colombo thrice. What he is longing for is a visit to Jaffna, the place of his birth, his cultural home.

This accountant, who shall be nameless at his own request, has no love for the LTTE or for some evanescent Eelam. He merely wants to return with his family to the kind of life he once led in a country that was free of the pestilence of war and violence.

This man is not an isolated case among the several thousands of persons of Sri Lankan origin who live in Britain. His nostalgia is shared by hundreds like him, Tamils, Sinhalese and even some Muslims I have met here.

This is particularly so among professionals and skilled people who have no real qualms about where they live and work in Sri Lanka.

Those who are most reluctant to return home are those who came here as refugees, having been harassed and intimidated by protagonists on either side of this conflict, had often to pay enormous sums of money to get here and feel that only abroad they could improve their station in life.

Most of them have to work hard to make a living. Some work at two or three jobs, live in groups of four or five. Certainly, by Sri Lankan standards they earn a good pay. But in terms of salaries here( which are generally low compared with what British expatriates and others earned in Hong Kong), they are poorly paid like most refugees and will do anything to survive having made it to the West.

Some of these Tamils were euphoric when talks began under the PA government and Norwegian facilitation seemed to pave the way for a possible peace, however tentative it might have appeared.

But when the talks collapsed, their hopes collapsed with a thud too. The LTTE makes a mistake when it assumes that the vast majority of the Tamils here are its unwavering supporters. They are not. Those who move with sections of the Tamil community here will understand their emotional attachment to home, never mind what part of the country it is. Certainly, those who have faced discrimination, harassment and even violence will wear those emotional scars and even damn those who harmed them just as Sinhalese and Muslims who have suffered at the hands of the LTTE will forever carry their grievances.

Last Sunday quite accidently I ran into a Tamil who said he used to tutor nurses in the Tamil language. A trade unionist, he had lived most of his life in the South and rattled off the names of his Sinhala friends and the great days they used to have together.

The divisions that existed back in Sri Lanka, the differences between Jaffna Tamils and Batticaloa Tamils, the differences between Tamils from one village in the peninsula and another are replicated here, sometimes breaking into open warfare in the streets of Greater London.

Whatever those differences that are played out from time to time, there is faith that peace will ultimately come and they could return home and restart their shattered lives. There is enough wealth with them to lead a comfortable life in Sri Lanka if that life is not disturbed by strife.

Those who see the tremendous advantages of the peace dividend in terms of financial savings at home and the infusion of that capital into productive enterprises, might not have given sufficient thought to the amount of capital that would be repatriated by returning Sri Lankans if peace comes.

Most Sri Lankans here live in two-three bedroomed houses, either terraced or semi detached. Property prices have risen quite sharply in the last two years before they reached a plateau. Now indications are that prices will go up further.

If the selling price of a house today is considered as £ 125,000 on an average which is on the low side, on conversion it should amount to around Rs 15 million or more at current exchange rates.

Admittedly not everybody wants to return. Those who have children to educate and those who are happy with the creature comforts available here will stay on. But there are many who long to come back to surroundings with which they are not only familiar but make them happy, even though they might miss the 'modernity' that the West has to offer.

If the foreign currency that is repatriated is reinvested for productive purposes, it will not only rejuvenate village and rural life but create service and other industries in the cities.

Right now I'm only talking of Britain. But the Tamil diaspora- unlike the Sinhalese- is spread far and wide and in the rich, affluent nations of the West and South East Asia and the Pacific.

Most of those longing to return-whatever their ethnicity- also know that this is probably the last chance the country will have of achieving peace. The cycle of fighting-ceasefires-peace talks-collapse of talks and renewed fighting cannot continue without reaching a stage when the combatants are emotionally saturated in suspicion and hatred that is impossible to overcome.

That is why this cycle has to be broken. But it can only be broken if both sides are serious that peace should be the ultimate goal.

If that is so, then the two sides need to be honest enough to recognise that a lasting peace cannot and will not be built on concessions from one side alone. Any concession, if one might call it that, must be followed by a concession by the other. And that is what a facilitator must ensure if that facilitator is not simply grandstanding and looking for international applause.

Concession for concession is the only way to create a balance as well as a foundation on which to construct the next step.

Are both sides ready to take that step and ensure a peaceful future?

CWE: Opening doors to downfall?

Why so, may we ask? Is it because CWE outlets cannot cope with their daytime workload? Are customers queuing up late into the night to obtain their goraka and karavala? Or is it simply because Minister Karunanayake wants to do something different and radical?

Let's face it: the average Sathosa shopper is not the corporate vice-president or the Colombo Seven housewife. The vast majority of them are wage earners who buy their onions and potatoes from there, gedara yana gaman, as the advertisement says albeit for a different supermarket. 

How then can they get to Sathosa and return home at two o'clock in the morning?(Oops, Mr. Marapana, the new Minister of Transport might see this and want to start a 24 hour transport service to and from Sathosa!)

Or it is that Mr. K. expects the average Sri Lankan to be so busy that he has time to do his shopping only at night? And anyway, will Sathosa become so profitable with this midnight shopping business that it would easily be able to afford the extra payments to the staff and other overheads that all this will entail?

The average consumer we feel then, couldn't care less whether Sathosa closed its doors at eight o'clock in the night or kept them open all day, though Mr. Karunanayake seems to think otherwise. But now that this is being done, perhaps the Minister should look back and take stock as to whether 24-hour shopping has been a success.

Of course we admire Mr. K for the little things he did after he became a minister. He had the price of gas reduced and did the same for milk food. We do recognize him as someone who wants to do something and wants to be seen to be doing something. But with Sathosa, the good minister seems to have got carried away!

When politicians take decisions, some of them turn out to be great, others turn out to be great disasters. The price reduction of gas was great but keeping Sathosa open for 24 hours a day has the potential to be a great disaster. The staff, we hear, are already complaining and there is no increase in turnover to match the increased costs of maintaining an open door policy.

The question now is will Mr. K have the grace to admit he blundered and revoke his decision? Or will that hurt his ego so much that he will carry on regardless, dragging Sathosa down with him? We must hope that he chooses the former option. 

After all, he is still a podiyen in national politics and he can learn from his predecessor Kingsley Wickremeratne who was Trade Minister in the previous regime: he didn't manage Sathosa particularly well and he lost the election!

Commercialising public enterprises

By the Economist

The CWE has always been looked at as an outlet that would sell goods at low prices. By selling goods at lower prices it was expected to exert an influence on the prices of goods sold at other private shops as well. However selling a small amount of goods at below market prices served no useful purpose. It could not assert an influence on the prices in the market. Only few could obtain these supplies and even they could access these goods at great inconvenience. Neither the public nor the government benefited in any real sense.

For far too long the CWE has been looked at only from the point of view of offering goods at lower prices. Often the sale of goods at lower prices was nothing more than a gimmick to show to the world that prices have not risen. By selling at lower than cost at times it suffered losses. These would be passed on to the public. Goods at such low prices were often in short supply and only a small proportion of the public had access to these. The objective of reducing the cost of living of the general public was hardly served. 

Selling goods at below cost serves no real purpose. Private shops cannot sell goods at below cost. The CWE itself could sell only a limited amount of such goods, as it would otherwise incur heavy losses. These losses have to be ultimately borne by the people themselves.

What was needed was the sale of goods at prices that included a reasonable profit. Adequate supplies of such commodities and easy and convenient access to them were equally important. It was also necessary to improve the service features of these outlets. The steps taken recently are in this direction.

What has been done with the CWE requires broad basing and replicating in other public enterprises. This process is known as the commercialization of public enterprises. It is being tried out in the two state banks with foreign bankers assisting in the process. The essence of commercialization is that these public enterprises should be run in the same manner as private enterprise. Instead of looking at profits as a dirty word, it should be an indicator of efficiency. While prices should be kept at reasonable levels, the enterprise should make profits. That is the principle on which public enterprises should be run. The nature and character of the commercialization would differ from one enterprise to another depending on the type of service offered.

While the world has caught on to the concept of privatization of state enterprises, there is a forgotten half of the privatization process. That is the possibility of introducing the principles of private management and efficiency in public corporations. There is a strong case for retaining certain enterprises in public ownership. The CWE is a case in point. 

But the justification for its retention as a government owned undertaking must rest on it serving the objectives of providing goods at reasonable prices, in adequate quantities, at convenient locations and hours, improving the service quality and making profits rather than losses. To ensure these it would be necessary to introduce new management methods, give inducements to employees in the form of bonuses based on performance and perhaps even a stake in the enterprise.

The experience of the CWE reforms opens up a whole new chapter of public enterprise reform. Where privatization of public enterprises are neither prudent nor practical, let us commercialize their operations and induce a new wave of efficiency and profitability. Will the CWE reforms be a forerunner for other government business undertakings?