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| Sunday, 1 August 2004 |
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Letters |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
It is laudable indeed on the part of the President and the educational authorities to plan out a clear cut policy with regard to admissions to grade one in national schools. As we all know it is a rat race among the parents to use all the ploys and subterfuges at their command to circumvent the law relating to these admissions. But Ms. Tara de Mel and her assistants seem to be determined to overcome all the subtle moves on the part of unscrupulous parents to get their children admitted to prestigious schools. As I have come to know all the initial steps taken in this direction, especially the summoning of all parents of applicants to a meeting where they will be thoroughly acquainted with the rules governing admissions, seem to be already showing noteworthy progress. Let us hope that the whole exercise will ensure a corrupt free and fool proof system. Understandably, parents who are unsuccessful in their efforts to admit their children to national schools move pell-mell looking for openings in governments aided private schools which no doubt are doing a yeoman service, if not for their narrow-minded policy of marginalizing efforts of non christian parents desperate on admitting their children. In this context it is worth examining if this kind of discrimination takes place in national schools where thousands of non-Buddhist receive their education. These private schools which accept large donations, although state - aided and following the national syllabus of studies, ironically do not come under the "No donations" stipulation planked on national schools. It cannot be gainsaid that this is a predominantly Buddhist country, where Buddhist children must be given recognition when effecting admissions. But lamentably a good many of these so called private schools, according to unsuccessful Buddhist parents, insist on baptizing the child before given the green-light for admission. But certain Buddhist parents, nonetheless, have managed to admit their children to these government - aided private schools by tapping the avenues that matter. Finally, I don't wish to inject a rebellious tone to this letter but when a law against proselytization is in force, can the education authorities in this country condone forced baptizing at the door of school admission. Is it the time ripe to step in and immediate steps to rationalize the admission procedure to private schools without allowing a caucus of prejudicial individuals to rule the roots sans justice, tolerance and fairplay. Bandula M.Abeywardene, School children can discipline politicians ! The Education Department officials responsible for initiating a programme for introducing into school curricular activities to inculcate ethics and civic consciousness ought to be highly commended. What should be done is to make use of school children to inculcate ethics among politicians. Provide television sets in every school and make it mandatory for schoolchildren to watch proceedings in parliament. For this purpose the proceedings in the parliament should be live. The awareness that schoolchildren in millions are watching them over telecast television will improve the behaviour of the hooligans in parliament. The education department officials also need to be highly commended for the full page newspaper supplement 'Strengthening English Education in Schools'. There was no Rata Perata political flavour in it. Hopefully no one will get fired for it. Civic minded citizen, I have just experienced the most antiquated, frustrating and expensive import of less that one cubic metre of personal effects in six similar sized boxes on a pallet. A message from the UK Government Trade and Investment Advice for Sri Lanka states that "transit times for sea goods can be long." That is an understatement, and it took a week to get my small consignment from the docks to the customs. After denying that the shipment was in the 'personal effects' section customs warehouse twice, I went to the warehouse, on the second visit, myself, to show the officers my pallet WAS in Customs. With scores of officials to pass we spent over five hours to get the consignment out. After paying over 5000 rupees in 'handling charges' to a clearing firm. Who handled precious little ! We paid 900 rupees to the Ports Authority and Customs for "personal items not for resale". Pieces of paper were passed from official to official in what must be the most bureaucratic office in the world. It could be compared to a comic tragedy. I have never counted so many 'comedians' and seen so much 'tragedy' in the faces of people struggling with the same system. Sri Lanka may be trying to encourage inward investment, but this is the worst possible advertisement to encourage that investment. May I suggest that, incognito, you experience the situation, to really discover what is going on so that you can rid yourselves of this 'Laughing Stock' image. BOI applicant, The U.S. and their quisling interim government in Iraq have started their propaganda to justify attacking Iran in the event of George Bush winning a second term in office. Earlier Bush declared that Iran was a part of an 'axis of evil' together with North Korea and Iraq. Iran is the only Shia-theocratic government in the world which fiercely guards its independence and has no diplomatic relations with the 'great satan' the U.S. The U.S. now suspects that Iran is secretly planning to make nuclear weapons with the discovery of uranium in her soil and hardliners in Iran are pushing the government to re-start its uranium enrichment programme a key step towards building nuclear weapons. Meanwhile some Bush officials are privately contemplating a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Russian fuel rods are delivered next year. The propaganda to justify an attack on Iran has been sparked off by the all-party report of the 9/11 commission set up by congress in 2002 which stated that Iran not Iraq fostered relations with the Al-Qaeeda network in the years leading up to the worlds most devastating terrorist attack. Iran is supposed to have given free passage to up to 10 of the September 11th attack hijackers just months before the 2001 attack and offered to co-operate with Al-Qaeeda against the U.S. These claims were dismissed as fictions and fabricated by an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi who said in a statement "when it comes to Al-Qaeeda we act in line with our interests and national security". Further the quisling interim government of Iraq threatened military retaliation against Iran on July 20th accusing its former foe of backing terrorists who have begun to focus their campaign of violence on the interim government itself. Hazim Al-Shalam the defence ministers of the interim government of Iraq denounced Iranian interference saying that Teheran was supporting foreign Islamic militants fighting alongside remnants of the Saddam era to destabilize Iraq. "They confess to the presence of their spies in Iraq who have a mission to shake-up the social and political situation." He said Iranian intrusion has been vast and unprecedented since the establishment of the Iraqi state". He added. In the past Iraq has levelled similar accusations against Syria and Shalam warned, "we are prepared to move the arena of the attacks on Iraq's honour and its rights to those countries. However in the latest move Iraq's Prime Minister has had talks with the President of Syria on how to get co-operation to prevent foreign militants entering through the Syria-Iraq border into Iraq. Throughout the last 25 years the U.S. and Israel have been working to bring the Islamic theocratic government in Iran to its knees, with the support of its western allies, Iran's pro-western neighbours and its supporters within Iran. Iran's borders amount to some 8,000 kilometers. American troops are now based across 6,000 kilometers of this border. This grim scenario has been gradually built over 25 years and has passed unnoticed by most Iranians. Saybhan Samat, With reference to the report in your business pages of July 18 about the press conference accorded by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, why has it not struck anybody to widen the tax net to include politicians and government servants ? According to this article by Gamini Warushamana, the Commissioner General has stated that some professionals such as doctors, lawyers, tuition masters and what have you, evade payment of income tax, because their transactions are mostly done in cash. Therefore, according to him, it is difficult to get exact information about their income. This is a fact. So, Sri Lanka remains poorer, until we come up with a fool proof method to catch these tax dodgers who deal in cash; not to mention the countless number of shop keepers and pharmacists as well. But politicians and government servants receive salaries and perks which are documented because they are paid by the Treasury, thus making it very easy for the Inland Revenue to extract taxes from them. It would be courageous if the Commissioner General and the economists suggest that these highly paid people of the country are brought into the tax net. Further, if the Commissioner General volunteers to pay taxes on his salary and perks (nothing to stop him, is there ?) it would be a laudable act. The President can give the lead by paying taxes on her enormous salary and perks. About 10 years ago, when there was a hue and cry about the falling economy of Britain, the Queen decided to come into the tax net. If our President, all MPs, ministers, chairmen of corporations, provincial councillors, in other words, politicians and government servants, start paying taxes on their huge salaries and perks which they receive from the people, it would be a patriotic gesture. There are only about two hundred thousand tax payers in this country of nineteen million people. Either the high paid government servants and politicians join the present tax payers to carry the burden of financing this country, or, the whole income tax department should be scrapped. It is ludicrous that such few people pay income tax. Our Constitution enshrines that all citizens are to be treated equally. So why this step-motherly treatment of some (tax payers), as against others (people who are liable for income tax, but do not pay)? Shouldn't all citizens, earning above a certain limit, be made to pay income tax ? Sunil K. Tennakoon, Pensions Dept. under fire again The present action of Pensions Department to remove the pension anomalies will give hardships to pensioners in collecting documents to revise their pensions. Our pension was worked out against our personal file. Our files were sent to the Pensions Department with full details. We received our pension against our flawless documents which are now with the Pensions Department. Now the pensioners are asked to produce several particulars supported by documents to revise their pensions. Among them are their educational certificates, first appointment letter, log entries and salary scales. Pensioner's declaration must be affirmed before a Justice of the Peace. There is a good rapport between JPs and Pensions Department. It shows that Pensions Department had lost the records of pensioners and as a result, it rests the responsibility on the pensioners who are invariably over 65 years age among whom many are having deplorable health conditions. When a pensioner gives his degree certificate, it ought be authenticated by the University. Training College Certificate must be legalised by Department of Examinations. This exercise will take lot of time. Though the Divisional Offices asked us to give our particulars under oath, the FR and AR won't permit such childish thinking. We can't go to the places where we worked to get the particulars and endorsement in our evening of life. The schools we worked in our heydays are not functioning now. As per the circular issued by the Ministry of Public Administration, the Divisional Pension Offices had been asked to convert the salaries of public servants to the scales that existed on 31.12.1996. According to this circular, the Public Administration had annexed the salary scales that prevailed earlier and as at 31.12.2004. Further, Divisional Pension Offices could identify the salaries of pensioners from the salary scales of pensioners which are in their offices. Pensions Department should help the Division offices by sending our documents. If the Pensions Department could not send our files, it should send atleast our last salary scales on which our pension was worked out, educational qualification and date of First Appointment. It is a crime to ask us to tender our documents after 15 years of interval. Will anyone keep these documents eternally? Divisional Pension Offices ask us to produce these particulars at a time when we are ready to enter the Homes for Elders with our bare belongings and pension card. Many pensioners would have destroyed their documents after the receipt of pension. The person who devised this form is not a fool but a sadist. The present expectation of Pension Office cannot be met by many pensioners due to their old age and sickness. Since this increase is applicable to windows of pensioners, it will become Herculean task for them find the details of their late spouses. Instead of giving hardships, Pensions Department should devise a workable programme to revise pension. M. S. Jamal, His story or if you are concerned about gender issues Her story, we were taught in school and at university, is all about looking at the past to learn so that we do not in the present and in the future repeat our story by making mistakes. However, I for one do not see the Sri Lanka body politic having learnt from July 1983!!! Alber W. Jebanesan in his 'Changing of the Gods' published by ISPCK this year has done a study of the process and experience of religious conversion among Sri Lanka Tamil refugees in London. Jebanesan's book helps a discerning reader to see the 'Tragedy of July 1983.' A watershed in the history of our Mother Lanka. Can't we the Sri Lanka of today make certain that our leaders do not repeat 1983 or 1956 etc.? The run-up to April 2004 was like pre-1956. Today the debate on conversions can if not handled properly, lead to another 1983 or the India of BJP/RSS style. We the people of Mother Lanka must ensure that our leaders do not mislead us. This is the hour that Mother Lanka needs her children. Can we respond? Sydney Knight, |
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