Executive decisions – or every citizen’s dilemma?

Ilike living in Sri Lanka these days. At least, in Colombo. At last, it feels like a world-class city. Well, perhaps senior echelon ASEAN regional standard. All right then, upper-end neighbourhood South Asian. I mean, what’s not to like? The roads are good. Many avenues are tree-lined and most central boroughs have been spruced up with nice-looking shrubbery. Everything from traffic lights to street lamps to electrifyingly lit up ‘lotus ponds’ works. There isn’t the usual level of dirt, debris, and detritus to cloud one’s outlook of the erstwhile – and, now, contemporary – garden city. CHOGM proved that we have the oomph (if not the moolah) it takes to get things done well, in style, on time, and make all of us (well, almost all) proud. And we’ll wager the city will look pretty stunning well beyond Christmas.

It is not just some extra special Commonwealth nip that is in the air. There’s something about the atmosphere that’s quite invigorating of late. We hosted a world-class show, showed our sternest critics a thing or three about sangfroid in the face of seemingly implacable hostility, and seemed to have got off scot-free on the accountability side of things (two out of three is a pass mark, dears). For now. Or until the next UPR (but let’s not mention that, shall we?). Diplomatic coups on the idiot box aside, I’ll bet the country could sit pretty on its Commonpoverty chair until kingdom come, or 2015, or whichever comes first.

But underneath the feel-good feeling, there’s a nagging sense that something’s wrong. Under the now loosened summit straps, there’s that niggling inkling that something’s not quite right. So, what is it?

That is the austerity belt being tightened you feel, folks! Like an uncomfortable pressure around the solar plexus. There goes the bread, followed closely by the circus. The taxman cometh, the gazette notification knocketh, the family silver hath been sold to pay for the stupendous feast that doesn’t end when the last gobsmacked guest goes home. That’s how the Mercedes Benz, dears. (Get it? ‘Bends’!)

Which is why I feel sorry for the powers that be. Their burden must be heavy, their yoke not quite as light as it was before the fiasco – sorry, I meant fiesta. We know they must be spending sleepless nights worrying how to make national ends meet now that we’ve made our international point. How to keep bringing home the country bacon without giving the state of the game away? Make the books balance (aka pass the buck) at the end of the spending spree?

Of course, there are the customary, traditional, sacrosanct, ways of doing it. One is to present the bill via a “people-friendly budget” that begs a boon of all of us beggars. We tightened our belts to fight terrorism; let’s continue to do so in the name of development economics. This is in addition to pulling out all the stops in terms of more concessions for political cronies or parliamentary cohorts, and further tax holidays for fat-cats. And then double-suckerpunch the other poor suckers into acquiescence (that’s you, dear) with a few sops to Cerberus (but our policymakers are too principled to do anything like that). Then there is the tried and tested strategy of delivering the death-blow by the late post, which is to say via supplementary fiscal estimates that are smuggled in under cover of darkness or disaster, cricket, and a host of convenient imbroglios like conspiracy theories, sleight of hand, Lamborghinis lurking in the background and belonging to nobody. Other tactics have been known to include trouble by, of, and with the saffron brigade; snap polls or spot by-elections; lots of bread and circuses in the shape and form of town and country tamashas, crown jewel shows, light and shadow play...

I think we can be happy that our powers don’t have this problem. Their executive decisions have boiled down to making some strategic choices in the national interest (that’s not anyone you know, dears). Unemployment? Recruit more unsuspecting civil servants into government ranks and lengthen the armed and loyal queues of uninformed, um I mean uniformed, citizens. Underutilization? Assets-bill it. Upheavals at the periphery of the political establishment? Swell cabinet ranks to over a 100 ministers and deputy ministers. Upshot? You and I owe our well-wishers, donors, and other erstwhile contributors to state coffers Rs. 360,000 apiece. I estimate it to be the annual earnings of the average citizen. Per-capita income, or every-citizen’s dilemma? Don’t look at me, dears. I’m in a quandary, too. Caught between the euphoria of a ‘successful’ summit and the plunge our posterity will have to take someday soon to pay for all this extravagance.