Columns

Given the Government’s accusation that opposition parties and trade unions are spreading COVID-19 through public protests, the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) decision to hold a public rally in Anuradhapura in the midst of another COVID wave is likely to attract criticism of hypocrisy.

During a media briefing on Friday, SLPP Kegalle District MP Rajika Wickramasinghe continued to make a connection between public protests and the spreading of COVID-19. She claimed such public protests were only fuelling the faster spread of the highly infectious “omicron” variant.

Ms Wickramasinghe was clearly flustered when a journalist immediately asked whether the SLPP’s massive rally in Anuradhapura, to which people were brought in from all over, would not spread the virus. “We didn’t bring anyone. People came willingly. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a real leader who cares for the country. That’s why people came in such large numbers. We are not the sort of party to bring people by giving various incentives,” she claimed, before abruptly ending the media briefing.

GL says talks with Tamil leaders soon, but TNA hits back

Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris was in New Delhi this week on a two-day official visit along with two other officials. This was his first visit to New Delhi on his second stint as Foreign Minister.

Even though the Foreign Minister sought a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it did not materialise. His other two engagements with his Indian counterpart External Affairs Minister S Jaishanker and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval went ahead as scheduled.

Before his return, the minister met with selected Indian journalists to talk about his visit and interaction with Indian officials.

During an interview with The Hindu newspaper, Minister Peiris was asked about the delay (eight months) in starting the talks that were supposed to be held between the Tamil leaders and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The Minister responded: “Many things, principally Covid-19 have intervened. But it is something that we are committed to and we will have those discussions quite soon.”

Commenting on the Foreign Minister’s response, a senior Tamil National Alliance politician said the learned Prof Peiris should stop coming up with lame excuses to cover up the failure of government leaders. “If there was a genuine political will, the meeting could have happened earlier as scheduled but there is no such thing.”

The TNA leadership, in the meantime, was leap-frogging to reach out to the Indian Government to pull their chestnuts out of the fire vis-a-vis the Sri Lankan Government.

Jaffna Hospital brand new C-arm scanner damaged; sabotage suspected

The Jaffna Teaching Hospital Director lodged a complaint with the police this week regarding the purported damage caused to a brand new C-arm scan machine that was fixed just four days ago.

Hospital staff noticed that part of the Rs 15 million worth machine was damaged and suspected that it could have been a deliberate attempt by some elements.

A similar incident happened months ago and the machine was replaced with a new machine last week. Earlier, a critical tool of the machine was stolen and never found.

Following a complaint made, the Police crime investigation teams visited the hospital lab to conduct investigations.

Auction of seized trawlers: Back to India as scrap metal

As Tamil Nadu fishermen were staging protests against auctioning their trawlers this week in Sri Lanka, the process went ahead with the sale of some 150 Indian trawlers in the North.

Most of those trawlers were partly or completely damaged due to longtime anchorage in the sea and in some worse case instances, a few of them remained submerged. In Mannar, officials found it difficult to track the trawlers since they had just ‘disappeared’.

A Fisheries Department special team consisting of marine engineers and valuation officers visited the districts to oversee the auction process.

There was a good demand for trawlers that were seized in recent years with local fishermen bidding competitively. One such 40-foot trawler was sold for Rs 1.3 million in Karainagar.

Apart from a few fishermen, the majority of those who took part in the auction were scraped-metal dealers and their middle agents who came from other districts. Once they secured the auction of boats, they fixed the deals with middle men on-the-spot to extract metals from the trawlers. One such dealer demanded Rs 20,000 for heavy iron bars and pulleys attached to the vessel for trawling.

A local journalist who visited the auction inquired from a scrap-metal dealer about the final fate of those trawlers for which he had made a successful bid at Rs 12,000 each. The dealer noted there is a good demand for scrap-metal as one kilo is sold at Rs 60 in the local market, and he was to outsource the recycling process to another party.

Then he made an interesting observation about the entire process: “There is no need for hard feelings among Indian fishermen about this auction”. When asked to elaborate, he said; “We are going to recycle these boats to extract metal parts and then we will export them back to India soon. The only difference is they come back in the shape of trawlers and we are sending them back as scrap-metal. Anyway, finally, it is going home — to India.”

Traders make a killing while minister says it is a ‘mini’ shortage

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa chaired a meeting on Friday at the Treasury in his capacity as a Chair of the Presidential Task Force Committee appointed to ensure essential services.

Ports Minister Rohitha Abeygunawardena, Presidential Secretary Gamini Senarath, Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalla and other senior officials of the relevant departments took part.

Some officials were shocked, if not surprised when Minister Rajapaksa declared that there was a temporary ‘mini’ shortage for some selected items such as powdered milk, gas, wheat flour, and cement. He also stressed that apart from those items, adequate stocks of other essential items were available in government stores.

The Minister’s downplaying statement of an acute shortage of goods came amidst reports of more than 1000 containers consisting of various essential items are yet to be cleared owing to the foreign exchange crisis and the Central Bank’s occasional release of limited funds in recent weeks.

With government removing the Maximum Retail Prices (MRP) for most of the items, which Minister Rajapaksa claimed as being temporary and ‘mini’, the traders are making a killing by selling them at exorbitant prices. A bag of cement was reportedly being sold at Rs 2000 in the retail market last week while domestic gas was being sold in the black market at more than Rs 3500 despite the MRP being Rs 2800.

Northern Governor accused of being high-headed and high-handed

Northern Province Governor Jeevan Thiyagarajah came under severe criticism by senior government officials in the province for his method of governance within such a short span since he took office.

Weeks ago, a group of secretaries to provincial ministries were transferred altogether. Some of those secretaries expressed concerns alleging the Governor who came from the Non-Government Organisations sector, was not aware of the limitations to his constitutional powers as the direct representative of the President.

“He could be the President’s representative here, but he cannot issue arbitrary orders to us to work on his initiatives. Certainly, we can collaborate and support him, but we report back to the Ministry of Public Administration, not to the Governor,” a senior official from the Provicial administration said on condition of anonymity.

Recently, a directive from the Governor’s office was sent to all Grama Sevakas to carry out certain tasks undertaken by his office in addition to their existing tasks. A Co-Chair of District Coordination Committee of Jaffna reportedly took up the issue with the Presidential Secretariat recently, complaining of the high handedness in provincial governance and the role played by the Governor.