Glancing through the business columns of a newspaper I found a revelation: 100,000 acres of land -30,000 in the North and 70,000 in the East- owned by the Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation are being occupied by the Army. The failure to transfer the land to the owners even 10 years after the end of the war shows the negligence of the authorities and their indifference to national development. The land remains unutilized productively. If this is the situation with regard to land belonging to a State Corporation one could imagine the lethargy and indifference that could exist in the case of transfer of private land to their legitimate owners.
Negligence is not limited to a particular sector of the economy or a particular field of activity. It is much more prevailing. Neglect of and insensitivity to human suffering is most callous. Many victimized families of landslides and other natural calamities are still in make-shift dwellings without houses, including those of Samasarakanda in Aranayake, whose misfortune shocked the entire country.
disorder and disarray
There is a local like adage which says like a bull goring a man who fell from a tree (gahen vetuna minihata gona anna vage). Similarly, negligence is often accompanied by disorder and disarray. In the context of increasing vulnerability of the country to natural disasters there is no unified approach to disaster management. As was noted recently in a study, there are 111 ministries that run 35 programmes on disaster management without any coordination among them. Also disturbing is the reluctance of the authorities to provide long-term and more sustainable disaster prevention measures and their preference to short-term and hurried temporary solutions in view of impending elections. The Nilwala Ganga development project is a case in point. Not only were long term plans, including the one that proposed integrated development of Kalu, Gin and Nilwala basins were abandoned, worse still even the implemented project was stopped half-way. A canal to drain excess flood waters in Matara still remain to be constructed with the result that the Matara town gets periodically inundated by flood waters.
Funds earmarked for capital expenses often remain under-utilized or unutilized and are returned to the treasury. The same happens with foreign investments at the year-end, resulting in interest being paid for such unutilized amounts. Allocations for social infrastructure development often gets misused for other expenses, the distribution of sil redi by utilizing Samurdhi funds being an example that attracted much public attention.
Bypassing environmental assessments for political expediency or subverting the assessment procedures by resorting to corruption are common. They arise fundamentally from indifference of the authorities to the plight of the people, especially the poor and marginalized. The tragic consequences of the Uma Oya Development Project which dispossessed land and water for thousands of people and ruined agriculture are well-known.
social infrastructure
Immense is the degradation of social infrastructure. For example, the whole system of University education is in a crisis. Universities are deprived of funds, human and physical resources and is plagued by maladministration.
No wonder our Universities have failed to reach a creditable place in the world University ranking.
Though we boast of providing free education from the Kindergarten to the University more than 50 percent of the cost of education falls on the shoulders of parents. Pre-school education is entirely in the hands of mudalalis and incompetent ‘teachers”. An unregulated private school network has grown over the years and its cumulative effect has not been studied or recorded.
In the health sector a vibrant private health service has grown alongside the State health service. The former depends largely on the human resources of the latter. Meanwhile, the State hospitals, especially in the outstations suffer from manifold shortages and deficiencies.
Public transport is woefully inadequate. The inadequacy of public transport has resulted in a massive influx of private vehicles on the roads and caused huge discomforts to the commuters. Escalating fuel prices and strong-arm tactics of private omnibus owners have jacked up transport fares to unbearable levels. Roads and highways are becoming death-traps and the number of traffic accidents, including fatal ones is on the rise.
The Government has done away with planning. It has not appointed the Planning Commission and dismantled the planning infrastructure. The economy is drifting like a rudderless ship.
The Police Commission and the IGP are at loggerheads. Now even conspiracy charges are levelled against senior police officers. Law’s delays are proverbial. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Forces of communalism and ethno-religious fundamentalism are aggressively threatening the unity and cohesion of the social fabric, unfortunately with no opposition from the Government which prefers to flirt with them.
This is the situation we face today. Quo vadis Sri Lanka?
Could this situation be tolerated? Who could show a way forward?
Is there a Saviour around? Or a Gramscian Modern Prince? Unlikely. 2020 is not going to solve anything. The danger of unrest looms.
Can we escape by running away to foreign lands? No, though a few would succeed.
Then we have to stay and fight to avert the danger. How? That’s the question!
This column expresses its confidence that sooner or later the progressive forces in the Sri Lankan society would eschew opportunism and sectarianism and merge into a formidable social force capable of chartering an independent path of development that would be democratic and just. Let all men and women of good will work towards that end!
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