RECENTLY the Prime Minister expressed some interesting views. One such view was that when it comes to the Central Expressway project the matter will be subject to a proper tender procedure. Now with the track record that the Prime Minister has had, the ministers that are close to the Prime Minister has had. With the amount of corruption we have experienced in state institutions in our country. When the Prime Minister says we will have a proper tender procedure, what comes to your mind?
Proper tender procedure is I think an over statement. Because I don’t think this government has had any tender procedure which is proper, because every tender which has been held, which has been had, has had so many regularities and so many people are trying to fix these tenders. So proper tender procedure is not a thing which we can expect from this Government. Of course the tender procedure is very simple but the interference of it, now you can see the tender with regard to that sugar company where the president’s chief of staff was involved, now even that they were trying to keep some items and release the balance and they were twisting the arm of the successful bidder. So in that form so many interferences take place in the tender procedure.
And now there is this procurement commission which is coming to operation. One doesn’t see any action on the part of the procurement commission. The Yahapalana government has established all these commissions but without teeth, without resources, without officers, so they cannot function. So Prime Minister’s statement about proper tender procedure is an absolute overstatement, and I don’t think you can expect it. Of course now one thing is that cabinet economic subcommittee is out of the way because that was the one organization which has caused irreparable damage with regard to awarding contracts and tenders because it was that committee which approved even the coal tender where the Supreme Court found fault with the secretary and it was that CCM which approved the coal tender and the Sri Lankan citizen had to pay fifteen dollars more for a ton of coal for 2.5 million tons of coal. So that is the magnitude of the corruption that is the magnitude of the interference of the Prime Minister and his ministers with regard to tender procedure.
Mr. Gunaratne another point that was raised there was that the Samurdhi fund, that the Samurdhi bank will be taken under Central bank. Now once again given what has happened at the Central Bank, given the fact the EPF money of the people, that belongs to the poor people, the working class, the working people of the country was in a way misused. When you say that the Samurdhi will also be taken under Central Bank, isn’t there a bit of a fear?
I of course feel that all the banks, whether it is Samurdhi, whether it is a co-operative bank, whether it is the Sanasa Bank, whatever organization which classifies itself as a bank should be taken under Central Bank. Now in rural areas you get small banks, the Samupakara and all that. So now all those I feel should be scrutinized by some regulatory body and preferable the only organization in this country is the Central Bank. Of course the Central Bank’s conduct has been disappointing, it has not contributed very much, but still you can give it more teeth, you can give it more people and you can strengthen it. Therefore I feel that may not be a bad idea for some kind of regulatory because these banks are not being controlled by anyone.
Now I know in Habaraduwa I just accidently bumped into a person who had put money into the co-operative bank and bank is saying they don’t have money to pay them back the depositors. So if there is some kind of control at least the indicators will show that this bank is not doing all that well. Because you know people in the villages have gone and put it into the co-operative bank because I think it is the easiest place to go and put money, it is close to their house, they don’t have to go to the town and it doesn’t take one whole day. So with regard to that convenience they have put it into the co-operative bank but now when they go to withdraw their money, they are saying we don’t have money to pay. Now what they are saying, I don’t mean to insult but they are saying, if you know anyone who want to settle the bank if you can bring that person and come we will give you that money because your money we have given to some other person. So it has come to that level.
So I feel that statement is good but I don’t think the Prime Minister should have any control over the central bank. Because he is the person who took over central bank under him, he took the EPF under him, he took the Insurance trust fund under him, he took the ETF under him and he premeditated this whole Central bank fiasco by bringing Arjuna Mahendran. Today Arjuna Mahendran is not in the country. I think he has a moral duty to bringing Arjuna Mahendra, get him to come down. Because if he could have got him from Singapore to come and be the Central Bank governor, after he has robbed the Central Bank after the Central Bank has been completely, you know the image tarnished, he has a moral duty to get the governor bank or he should resign. If he’s honorable, I don’t think he has being untouched by being honorable but if he has a semblance of it even he cannot bring Arjuna Mahendran as he is the person who appointed Arjuna Mahendran to that positon, he should on that alone with high ground high moral Ranil Wickremesinghe should resign. So he has no right to talk with regard to banking activities but I think the Central Bank itself, the governor of the Central Bank should at this late stage even get all the banks under their purview, get qualified people to come into the Central Bank and get this to be properly regulated and it has to be checked and there should be indicators that even once a month they can publish this indicators so that even the general public who know about that, the retired people who know about banking can go into them and say that this bank seems to be having certain problems.
Mr. Gunaratne doesn’t this inaction stem from right from the top. I’ll come back to my point. If you take the Parliament they are worried about their ministerial portfolios crossing overs, establishing their confidence, things like that. So they don’t really care about the people and their problems. So doesn’t that boil down to the low levels and isn’t that why we are having this issue. Now politicians don’t care about the people, they care about themselves that is the perception. Perception has come from the Parliament, isn’t that not?
Yea, but the point is when you talk of the local government bodies, now there are new people who are gone in. So they need to get that together. You can’t change that. Maybe the parliamentarians, provincial councilor’s you can’t change. But at least let us make a change with this the new flush which has gone into the local government bodies.
There are more ladies which have gone in and at least I feel that is a good thing, although it is perceived as they are not doing anything they’re just passengers, but slowly they will get into action because whatever said and done it is the ladies in this country who are running this economy. You take the foreign employment, you take the tea industry, you take the garment industry, and the main foreign exchange earners have been the females. So them coming into politics is a good thing and basically cleanliness in the house also is maintained by them. I also feel that they also must play a major role because this is our country and these are our cities, these are our home towns.
So we need to make it clean, we need to make it green. And i have proposed to our team a concept by the name “Surapurak Hadana Parapurak”. “Surapurak Hadana Parapurak” is where we get the student population of this country, there are about 5 million students involved in the garbage disposal. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. For instance in the urban area today people don’t use firewood and coconut shells and things like that. I’m only giving one example. To cook the coconut shells they use maybe one or two coconuts a day is just thrown into the garbage. But coconut shells have a economic value. For activated carbon you need the coconut shell and the guy who collects the coconut shell has to spend a hell of an amount of money by using a tractor to send it all over the place and get it. I’m going to give an example. So if you can get the children to collect their coconut shells, collect their plastic waste, collect their cardboard waste, collect their electric waste like mobile phones, mobile phone chargers, computers which sometimes are just gathering dust at homes. So all these have a market value. If the children are assigned one day of the week to bring it to the school and in school you get the Prefects who will administer the collection, the sale and bank books to be open to all children, you get the People’s bank, get the Bank of Ceylon, get the Sampath bank, get the Seylan bank, whoever, to come and put this money. Will say a coconut shell, it has a value of about four rupees for two shells. So will say, a child brings ten shells he gets 20-25 rupees. You can start it from grade three actually upto A level or O level. By that time they well collect so much money. So then they get used to the habit of saving, they get used to being environmentally active and alert. When they are walking and if they see some Yoghurt cup or plastic bottle somewhere they will go out and take it because they know that they can make some money out of it. So this is a thing which I think as a national policy which has to come forward. I submitted this proposal to the President some time ago. Of course no action was taken, they just went by the wayside. I submitted this to the Honorable Mr.Patali Champika Ranawaka as a member of the Minister of Urban Development and Megapolis. Not much interest was taken. But anyway this is a thing we can start at a school even now a Principal of a school who is hearing me he can start this.
And if we can get rid of that garbage. Now the coconut shells are going into the garbage, the cardboard is going into the garbage, the other thing is these bulbs, these energy-saving bulbs has a lot of harmful chemicals in it, so the moment you put it into the water so many liters of water get contaminated. So then even if you can bring that you’re saving out water resources because Sri Lanka is rich with water resources. We should protect our water resources. Because in another 10-15 years’ time water is going to be like petrol, it is going to have so much of value. Today, do you know that water is more expensive than milk. You buy a bottle of water, a liter of water it’s almost the same price. So what makes you think with so much of rainfall playing hell in all over the world. Now in this country in some areas there’s drought and drought is there for the last one and a half years. Now the southern hemisphere we are experiencing less rain every five years. So the coconut production has gone down. People are complaining about coconuts not because of anything else because the coconut triangle does not get enough rain. Therefore there is no young coconuts coming into the market.
There is a definite shortfall of rain. So we need to protect our water resources and this is the only thing which we can market. And rich country with rivers flowing all over the place water just going into the sea. So if we can protect this and preserve the water resources that is where we can make our money. But unfortunately no attempt is being made.
I remember I was reading a book of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. When he took over as Prime Minister of Singapore the Singaporean water canals were filthy, it was stinking. But today in Singapore people can jump into the water canal and swim. So to that extent if he could do it, we can do it. And all this is the work and the purview which comes under the local government election.
President is the Minister of Environment. He needs to play a bigger role because he can see most of the people who are around him are robbing. They are involved in bribery and blatant corruption. So he needs to check. Now I am told that he has appointed another person as the chairman of Timber Cooperation, that fellow is also a rogue, he has a track record. So if you put monkeys you will only just get this kind of conduct. So all, even the President, the Prime Minister, everyone has a responsible to this country. He says he is going to continue, if he’s going to continue after 2020 and do the same thing, I mean God help this country. They make big proclamation that he is going to continue, what is he going to continue and do. He has promised to change the election system, let him change the election system. That is the biggest favor he can do. Because then you will get a new breed of people coming into this country. We need a new breed of people to come and run this country. We need people who love this country, not people who are going there to get their positions, to get their perks, to get their privileges.
