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That was meant to be a candid statement. At least that is what Finance Minister Mohamed Ali Sabry perhaps thought it was and hoped that most of those who are now at the collective jugular of the president, prime minister and the pohottuwa -not to mention corporate acolytes of the lotus leaders-would see it at such.

The finance minister’s sworn testimony, as it were, to parliament came at a time when the once seemingly untouchable Rajapaksa clan-especially Gota Rajapaksa- has fallen from grace to disgrace in a relatively short time, to judge by the massing of the citizenry in Colombo and elsewhere.

Their consistent and unending call for Gota to go home, signifies how quickly and sharply public perception of the current president has turned from hero to zero.

But he is not the only one in the family who has been subjected to such popular opprobrium as the slogans have enlarged from “Gota go home” to a wholesale elimination of the Rajapaksa’s quit politics.

Besides the shortcomings of the Rajapaksas themselves much of the blame should rub off their image polishers who tried to place them as essential links in Sri Lanka’s long history of monarchy which JR Jayewardene wished to revive when he became president but considered himself king. So the emphasis on Anuradhapura as the centre of events and even to the extent of building a Ruwanveli Saya like dagoba ostensibly in the name of war heroes.

Furthermore President Gotabaya’s over reliance on a cabal of arrogant, short sighted and overbearing advisers who had self- certified them as intellectuals and whizz kids, misled a politically uninitiated and untutored president into supporting unreservedly their policy decisions.

Unfortunately it was far too late when he realised that he had faulted when he backed these over-rated advisers and the damage had already been done. Arrogance and ignorance is a highly toxic mix when running a country which is far from beautifying the capital city.

First a couple of things about Minister Al Sabry. If my memory serves me right, it was not too long ago that he threw in the towel and his Justice minister portfolio when his boss President Rajapaksa (Gotabaya that is, not Mahinda) appointed that highly controversial monk Galagoda atte Gnanasara to head a committee to do something about a pet project called “One Country, One law.”

Some who read of this appointment felt it was a mistake—perhaps a printing error- for Gnanasara Thera might have sat with greater assurance on a committee titled “One Country, No Law”, for he did not seem to have any particular respect for the judiciary and the law which earned him on one particularly notorious incident a prison sentence.

On hearing of this crassly unsuitable appointment supposedly without his knowledge as minister- in- charge of law- making and combatting law breaking, Justice Minister Ali Sabry threatened to resign and did in fact, as I remember, send his resignation to the president and his one-time client.

Whether this was in genuine pique, concern for his integrity or another act in Sri Lanka’s long-running political theatre one cannot say. But there he was back at the job saying that the president had turned down his decision to quit.

More recently with all this brouhaha about demands for Gota (a rather undignified way of addressing Sri Lanka’s once- touted national hero, some might say) to go home and the hurried shuffling of a new pack of cards in search of fresh jokers, so to say, the same Mr Ali Sabry was named finance minister. That was after brother Basil, along with the whole caboodle that formed a lacklustre cabinet, was kicked in the posterior and out of the cabinet along with two other Rajapaksas and a couple or more of other relatives.

Well, lo and behold! Before the hands of the clock could complete its full rounds, there was Mr Ali Sabry queuing up like all good citizens of Sri Lanka but not for gas, fuel, medicines, powdered milk and sundry other items that one needs to survive these days, but with another letter of resignation.

Not that he had joined the pre-dawn queues for this, that and the other like other deprived citizens who did not belong to ruling elites like Putin’s oligarchs. That is metaphorically speaking of course.

But one thing one cannot forget in this game of ministerial musical chairs. In less than 24 hours the new money minister, if one might call him that, he seemed to have had a good look at the country’s balance of payments situation and the foreign reserves before he decided to write the letter.

I mean it would not have taken him long to count the usable foreign reserves. There was little to count anyway. As he told parliament a few days back, it is below $50 million

Surely for a country that has been boasting about its upper middle- income status less than five years ago, its highways that led the people up the garden path and a sparsely used international airport that could easily accommodate many thousands of Ukrainians- not the ones airlifted here by dear cousin Udayanga Weeratunga but those bombed out of their homes by an autocratic and expansionist Russian ruler– we now seem to have less dollars than some of our own cabalistic oligarchs with their off-shore bank accounts.

Anyway, there was Ali Sabry telling the 225 at Diyawanna Oya who had initially managed to escape the wrath of the people but not for long, that he was still finance minister- apparently because there was no one to pick up the job.

Scant wonder. Who would want to accept a finance minister’s task when his job would be to travel the world with a begging bowl. Why he did not think of asking those who have stashed away their dollars in every nook and corner round the world beats me. But that’s another story.

Well, at least he gets to see the world even on a debilitated national carrier which is trying to replenish itself with money it does not have. But then some others holding positions in the carrier did make a few bucks here and there but enough to dump in accounts in Australia according to the Panama Papers. One cannot ignore the Seychelles, a key tax haven, where another close relative presides as high commissioner twiddling his thumbs with just a handful of Sri Lankans to care for, though a branch of the Bank of Ceylon lives on there doing what heaven only knows after all there cannot be too much busy to deserve a bank branch.

Having done his duty by a nation about to crash land with Minister Ali Sabry screaming “May Day, May Day” in an obvious sign of distress, one might have thought he would settle for a moneyless finance portfolio and lie low.

But there he was joining a chorus of faithfuls very much out of kilter and melodic consistency. Instead he charges into the fray like the Light Brigade and accepts another portfolio as Justice Minister.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would have said in Wonderland. Here is a man who once intended to quit the two portfolios now accepting both with seeming alacrity and perhaps a grateful thanks for turning him into a double- barrelled minister.

Yet it might be said for Minister Ali Sabry that he does not wish to sweep things under the carpet as his colleague and companion, Foreign Minister GL Peiris recently assured some Colombo-based diplomats that this government would not do.

So lets give Minister Ali Sabry a chance and see what he comes up with next at a time when several members of the Bar Association of which he is undoubtedly a member, are playing an active role in support of the protestors and ready to file action against any over- zealous policemen who think they make the law.

After all he is Justice Minister and he assure that justice is not only done but it must be seen to be done. Lest not forget that the IMF, the World Bank, the UN Human Rights Commission and the EU and the Commonwealth are all watching for government goose-stepping.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran
Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London)