Untitled Document

Why not a Lee-ward lurch to achieve development
Had it fallen on my lot (heaven forbid) to catalogue the comings and goings of our leaders-and those who once led the Sri Lankan people- to this city, I would have had to borrow the fingers and toes of my neighbours.

Fortunately such an unenviable task has not been my mandate and so I have been able to keep away from the numbers game and retain a modicum of sanity.

This year-that is the last 10 months- has been a profitable business for the airlines while politicians clocked thousands of air miles. If one might adapt the words of T S. Eliot "To London town our beloved leaders come and go, For an hour, a day and often very much more".

Some time back President Chandrika Kumaratunga seemed like a rather regular visitor. And it would have been very helpful if she was on one of those frequent flyer programmes.

Not everybody knew of course what she was doing here. Now and then she would appear on some BBC or CNN spot or have breakfast with Frost (David that is, not Robert), pay enormous sums to some PR firm to prepare the ground for an earth shattering denouement and then fly into the sunset as though nothing had happened.

The last two or three weeks have been hectic. Ministers have arrived, ministers have passed through, ministers were in transit, some were going to Washington, others going to New York and still others to Brussels, sprouting out of Heathrow just long enough to catch one's breath before the next leg in these astronautical exploits.

In the last two weeks, there was Rehabilitation Minister Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena, Economic Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda, Finance Minister K.N. Choksy and Mass Communications Minister Imtiaz Bakeer Markar.

And before Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was here and later went via Heathrow to Washington and later New York. Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando was in London town not to mention Ports Minister Rauff Hakeem. Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris was here at least twice, once to speak to potential investors.

Not to be outdone by this phalanx of ministerial heavyweights, the opposition also threw in some heavy artillery in the way of Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse and former minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, quite a heavyweight himself.

But if all this physical and mental exertion is on behalf of the people who voted them into parliament and power and such travel is at the tax payers' expense, then I would think that it behoves leaders to tell the people what they have been doing for the well-being of the people.

Certainly Prime Minister Wickremesinghe's address to the United Nations and his other speeches in New York and Washington have been well publicised in the media and have his interviews which give an indication of his thinking and where he is heading. But quite so often, ministers have found the easy way out of issuing press releases during their foreign travels and refusing or somehow avoiding meeting the media. The press release is nothing more than a casual giveaway like the crumbs thrown off the table. For instance when minister Peiris was here to speak to selected potential investors, the media was not invited and all we had at the end was a press release.

But that does not tell us the questions raised by prospective investors, their worries and concerns and what particular aspects of policy or lack of it, mattered most to them.

Minister Moragoda met Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Minister for Europe Peter Hain and Parliamentary undersecretary Mike O'Brien. A press release issued after the meetings said, among other things, that Britain would assist Sri Lanka's rehabilitation.

Now if Minister Moragoda had had a few minutes for the Sri Lankan media here at least, he could have cleared up some matters such as whether this British assistance is in addition to normal British aid, whether a quantum was mentioned, when it could be expected and whether Minister Moragoda had asked for aid for particular projects.

The Sri Lankan people have a right to know the answers to such questions not only because they are paying for ministerial travel, but also because such promises are often blithely made but no assistance comes- certainly not with the kind of expedition conveyed at high powered meetings.

Some five years or so ago, former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, on a visit to India, was asked how India could become an industrially developed country such as Singapore.

The sharp-witted Lee gave it a little thought and said he did not think it was politically feasible. But, he said, if the country was leased out to him for 30-40 years and he was allowed to bring in his own experts, then he might be able to do the job.

I am not a great admirer of Lee Kuan Yew, but there are many things he got right. Just imagine Mr Lee running the Sri Lankan corporate state.True, those who value media freedom and sometimes equate such freedom to that of the wild ass, might abhor Lee's business-like approach to governance. But think of the flip side and the many plusses. There will not be a government. There will not be politicians and political parties haranguing each other and treating parliament like a kung-fu training school.

There will be no need for a bureaucracy and those found with their hands in the tills will have them chopped off- the hands not the tills, as in Saudi Arabia which according to George W. Bush should be saved from the likes of Saddam Hussein in the name of democracy and civilised society.

We will not need embassies and high commissions either. We don't need a foreign policy-we don't seem to have one anyway- and Mr. Lee can look after it very nicely.

Anyway the majority of them seem spending hours in the VIP lounges round the world, waiting for our VIPs or seeing them off.

Since the business of government has now become the government of business why not let somebody who has made a success of it do the job.

Back to Columns