Fresh breeze blowing o’er Lanka

One can hardly believe that our country is scarcely a month away from the date set apart for the general elections. Believe it or not, not a single cutout or bigger-than life-size picture of our really ugly, thieving politicians is smiling down on us from every nook and cranny in the city. Again, ‘we the public’ will happily miss the faces of many of our aging politicians who earlier never seemed ready to retire.  

A breath of fresh air seems to be blowing over our country. But all does not seem to be as well as we would like it to be. We hear the leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) threatening to unleash an entire set of documents regarding the Easter Sunday attack within seven days unless the government makes them public. 

Now, this seems strange, if anyone has information which lead to the nabbing or revealing the identity of the ring leaders of that deadly attack. It is definitely his/her duty to hand these documents over to the police. In fact, not providing such information to the authorities is not in public interest. Over 250 families of the victims need closure to the continuing trauma they are living through. 

Without calling out names, many among political party leadership appear to have taken umbrage that President Dissanayake has not reneged on the IMF deal signed by immediate past President Wickremesinghe. The fact of the matter is Dissanayake promising to renegotiate parts of the agreement he felt placed burdens on poorer sections of the community. 

It is to past President Wickremesinghe’s ability and political acumen, our country was able to drag itself out of the quagmire of bankruptcy. Former President Gotabaya’s ill-thought out strategies and economic policies together with the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, wasteful expenditure by earlier regimes all led the country to disaster. 

Let’s face it, Wickremesinghe was at that time the man of the hour. However, his stringent regimen to get the country out of its bankrupt state, did his electoral chances any good. Though now yesterday’s news, Wickremesinghe’s implementation of a tough programme went a long way to ease the country’s ability to claw back its credit-worthiness on the international stage. 

Recognising this reality, President Dissanayake in his initial discussions with the IMF emphasised the need to ease the burdens on the poor, while at the same time keeping in line with IMF agreement. 

Meanwhile, another example of the fresh breezes blowing across this country has been the recent jailing of persons from the richest sections of society. In a welcome change, a number of businesspersons who were found guilty of non-payment of taxes were jailed!  One among these business people, had avoided payment amounting to Rs 3,500,000,000 (Rs 3.5 billion). 

The gentleman has appealed his sentence. But the fact that someone at this level now sits in jail, is to put it mildly unheard of in recent times. Believe it or not the gentleman has not claimed ill health and sent to hospital either. 
The jailing of this individual and a number of others of his ilk will surely see a change of heart among the numbers of business people who have taken loans from state banks and not repaid their loans. 

According to Transparency International in 2012 a massive Rs.125 billion was written off as bad debts by the two state banks over the past ten years. This was much higher than government’s allocation to the health, education and economic development sectors of the country. 

For ordinary citizens who lose their assets for the mere non-payment of a few thousand rupees, the news that the elite in society are now paying for their crimes is music to the ears.

 
The change suggests the new regime will not interfere with the judiciary.  

If the new broom led by President Dissanayake continues on the path it has taken during the past few weeks, it will surely stand them in good stead at the forthcoming general elections.