Columns

It’s the case of a state enterprise losing more money under closure than when it is operational.
The Cabinet of Ministers decided only months earlier to shut down Mihin Lanka – which has been swallowing up public funds since it was set up on October 27, 2006 by the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa administration.

Just this month, however, the Cabinet decided to recommend that the two state owned banks – the Bank of Ceylon and the People’s Bank – should provide two and half million dollars each. That makes a total of five million US dollars or more than Rs 765 million.
For this purpose the ministers approved that Letters of Comfort should be issued by the General Treasury. Thus, the loans are extended by the state banks on a guarantee from the Government.

The recommendation for approval came from Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim. He told his ministerial colleagues that a previous loan for the same amount approved in July 2017 expires on October 7, 2017. The current request, he has said, is for the period October 8 till December 31. Previously, from time to time, ministers have given approval for Letters of Comfort.

Minister Hashim has noted that “Mihin Lanka is currently being wound up” and the money was needed until the process is completed.
Even SriLankan Airlines, the country’s virtually bankrupt national carrier is now running under similar Letters of Comfort approved periodically by the Cabinet of Ministers. Yet, the loss-making carrier has on its payroll more than ten top rung members of the management who draw sky-high salaries.
Efforts so far by the coalition government to lure a foreign airline for a “public-private partnership” to halt colossal losses have proved futile.

Billion rupee questions over breakfast with Mahendran
Two Ministers – Malik Samarawickrema and Kabir Hashim – appeared Thursday before the Commission probing the Central Bank bond issue.
During their brief testimonies, they were separately asked two main questions. One was whether Perpetual Treasuries Limited, at the centre of allegations over many irregularities on bond issues, made any cash donations to the United National Party (UNP). Both replied “No.”

The other question was whether they attended a breakfast meeting with the Central Bank’s former Governor Arjuna Mahendran on September 26 2015.
Minister Samarawickrema replied that he attended as Advisor to the Prime Minister. Minister Hashim added that he too took part and was then the Minister of Highways. Both said the meeting was to raise Rs 18 billion of urgently needed funds to continue the then ongoing highway projects. The Government has had Rs 3 billion and needed Rs 15 billion more, they said in separate testimony.

However, Ravi Karunanayake, told the Commission during his testimony earlier that he had gone with the two ministerial colleagues when he was the Minister of Finance. He said “we requested for” Rs 75 billion. He produced an undated letter addressed to “Whom it may concern” on a Finance Ministry memo to confirm the claim. The letter had been given to the then Governor. The moneys, the letter said, were needed for “urgent road construction which had come to a standstill due to lack of funds.”

Nuke issue may have denied Sirisena  the Nobel peace prize
President Maithripala Sirisena, who was nominated for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, missed out on the coveted award. But ironically, the winner of the award was the International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which relentlessly campaigned for a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons — a treaty which Sri Lanka voted on last July.

Still President Sirisena, perhaps wrongly advised by his nuke-loving officials, refused to sign the treaty or attend the signing ceremony when he was at the UN last month.In Colombo, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not throw much light on the Government’s volte-face on the non-signing of the UN treaty.

The spokesperson told the Sunday Times, Sri Lanka “in principle supports general and comprehensive nuclear disarmament and the signature of the treaty is under active consideration”.Would the signing have made a difference? Or even strengthened the President’s claim for the Nobel Peace Prize or perhaps entitle him to be a “runner up” or receive a “consolation prize”? It is anybody’s guess—but a consoling thought.

Surprisingly even two other decisions by the government which may have been in the right direction came far too late: An October 9 Gazette notification banning the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Sri Lanka, and new regulations imposing sanctions on North Korea, in keeping with UN Security Council Resolutions dealing with the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The non-signing of the nuclear treaty and the sanctions on North Korea would have most certainly placated the Trump administration. But whether it will help restore proposed US aid cuts remains to be seen.
Eventually, we may have lost out on both counts.

When, when? Polls chief quizzed  even in traffic jam
Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya is a man in the news these days with elections being the talk-of-the-town.
While it is well-known that he is constantly hounded by the media to get the exact date on when the next election will be held, what many don’t know is that it’s the question that he gets asked often by even strangers he encounter on a daily basis. In this case, it was literally, ‘the man-on-the-street’. “

“Recently I was caught in a traffic jam,” said Deshapriya, “and the man in the next car rolled down the shutter and shouted out to me ‘Comasaristhuma, kawada-da chandaya?’ (Commissioner, when is the election). I replied,’langadima, langadima’ (very soon; very soon)“, he told a group of women journalists he met this week.

Sexist remark for accident victim’s wife at National Hospital
The wife and a niece of an accident victim who was in the intensive care unit of the National Hospital in Colombo had to visit the hospital around 10 in the night as the victim’s family was asked to come there urgently.

Unfamiliar with the hospital’s surroundings, the spouse requested a niece to accompany her. At the entrance to the hospital, a security guard on duty had said that only the wife can go in. Then, he told the lady, “don’t worry; no one gets raped inside the hospital premises, so you can go alone.”

While it is understandable that there will be lapses when a free health care system is at work, what is unacceptable is the rude and inappropriate manner in which some of the security personnel on duty choose to throw their weight around and make sexist comments of this nature. Maybe the administrative authorities of the country’s premier hospital would do well to conduct a class for the crass security personnel on basic etiquette to be exercised when dealing with the public. It’s the authorities who get the bad name, after all.

Who’s this Herath and his Hari gossip?
Oshala Herath, who claims he is a coordinating secretary to the President held a news conference this week. Even if not many attended, there was one website that covered the event and reported on it by posting a live video. In that, Mr. Herath claimed that the President’s media division operated two different websites – Deshaya and Adaheraya. They functioned from a Government office in Green Path and were different to the official websites. Once, reporting on a story, they had declared there was also another one called “Hari Gossip” (Real Gossip).

Mr Herath was asked, “Do you still hold the post as Co-ordinating Secretary to the President?
His reply: “Yes, that is as of today. I am not sure about tomorrow.”