This beggar’s opera and Malik’s frolics
permanently and if you are not too particular you might even run into some politicians who know a thing or two about drugs and I don’t mean the kind dispensed at Osu Sala.
As for terrorists I thought they were going out not coming in, if you believe the Justice Minister. He said in parliament not too long ago that 32 Sri Lankan Muslims had gone to Syria to join ISIS, considered by many to be a vicious terrorist group. His statement was shot down in flames. It was flatly denied by the Security Council (the Sri Lankan one not the one at the UN in New York) and the cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne who can teach the UN a thing or two about issuing statements. So much for the people’s confidence and faith in the remarks of Justice Minister Rajapakshe and his assessment of policies of other minister’s who he openly criticises without putting his own house in order.
If Rajapakshe was embarrassed by this public demolition of his claim he showed no signs of it. He continues undeterred and unashamedly now chiding Karunanayake for not bringing it up at cabinet. Had Karunanayake done so, he Rajapakshe would have chewed the cabinet memorandum and its author like chewing the cud. After that extraordinary interlude which beggars (not the ones planning to come) belief people began to ask why ‘Rajapakshe the Intrepid’ did he not wait until it came up before cabinet instead of emulating the bull in the china shop?
The public also wants to know whether this is a put up job and Rajapakshe is being used as hit man to shoot down the proposal even before it can be discussed at cabinet. If this is such an attempt whose ploy is it?
Rajapakshe claimed that $300,000 amounts to Rs.45 million which is what is paid for a luxury vehicle or two perches of land in Colombo. Ministers and MPs are better acquainted with the price of luxury vehicles for which they get dutyfree permits at the expense of the public.
Justice Minister Rajapakshe also probably knows more about land prices in Colombo. Those of the moneyed-class, some even with illicit money accumulated over the years who dabble in land for residential and commercial purposes, would know these values unlike most Sri Lankans who find such astronomical prices as unreachable as the stars that shine in the night sky.
While Rajapakshe engages in megaphone criticism of his own colleagues, Samarawickrama works behind the scenes, silently and subtly to grant concessions to so-called investors undermining the very rules and regulations laid down by institutions that are specifically mandated to deal with investment issues such as the BOI in order to provide a level playing field. A case in point is the whole stinking business of the Horana tyre factory if media reports can be believed.
This is why the likes of Samarawickrama want to bring all the economic policy-making including matters concerning international trade within the ambit of the so-called Development Bill so that they could control all critical issues dealing with the economy apparently shutting the Sirisena-led SLFP out of the loop while making their decisions non-justiciable.
The recent case of leasing out BOI land at below the prices set down by the Board of Investment in Horana for the tyre factory mentioned above is bound to rebound on the UNP like the still unresolved bond sale issue eventually bringing the entire government into public opprobrium.
If what is said in some media websites is true then the very man that pro- yahapalanaya worthies said before and after the elections is a front man for Mahinda Rajapaksa who actually owns the Dubai Marriot Hotel seems to have now won the confidence of his critics like other business types engaged in political long jumping have done.
If all that is now said is true Nanda Lokuwithana, the so-called front man has found a point-man in Malik Samarawickrama who is ready to brush aside the BOI rules laid down by the current administration of the institution led by Upul Jayasuriya.
Is this not the same Samarawickrama that entered into a pact with a US lobbying firm to ‘sell’ Sri Lanka on the eve of a change of administration in the US when a new White House team was still in the making? Seems like Samarawickrama is following closely in the steps of Sajin Vass Gunawardena and Nivard Cabraal who had no hesitation is doling out state funds to hire US lobbying firms.
If this is a development strategy of Samarawickrama the minister of development strategy and international trade, and more are in the offing then only divine intervention might save this country.
Why does the WickremesingheSmarawickrama-Samaraweera troika want a US firm to ‘sell’ Sri Lanka when we are doing the job very well on our own?