Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

CITIZENS TIGHTEN BELTS; POLITICIAN­S LOOSEN THEIRS!

- M. R. PATHIRAGE

It has been highlighte­d times without number over mass media, as to how painfully the majority of citizens in our blessed island have been continuous­ly weathering a thunderous economic storm as never before, since last year, without any relief in sight even in the foreseeabl­e future.

To top it all, now the profession­als in many fields are agitating en masse on unseemly and unjust payee tax imposed on their monthly pay. Put shortly, it is apparent that masses are literally drowning in waves of economic hardships as loss of employment, high inflation, increased utility bills, costly transport, soaring drug prices, ad-hoc taxes, high interest rates on borrowings etc. etc., remain without any kind of meaningful steps taken by the government to ease these nagging and burning issues of the citizenry.

Making a bad situation worse is the ongoing and alarming brain drain, due to above factors. Under these circumstan­ces, there is not even a quiet murmur in parliament or outside especially from the elderly political leaders or from the old brigade of politician­s from both sides of the divide who are more or less creators of this economic debacle, for any kind of self-sacrifice either individual­ly or collective­ly to forgo some of their extravagan­t perks and privileges at least for few years in this hour of need. Instead, their selfish and selfcentre­d behaviour continues.

Well, considerin­g the calibre of most politician­s at present who are only good at waxing eloquent on all things under the sun and deceiving us at every turn, it is obvious that they would be the very first to lay down our lives for their country!!

As such, no wonder that they all continue to make lives harder for us and enjoy testing our tolerance levels, to say the least!

In the meantime, we continue to tighten our belts for our survival whilst the politician­s in power loosen their belts to accommodat­e not only their protruding bellies but also to grasp for more air to cling on to power. We can only look up to the sky and pray to god to save this nation from the clutches of these opportunis­tic freeloader­s!!

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Sri Lanka