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| Sunday, 3 October 2004 |
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Letters |  |
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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.
An appeal to the Finance Minister A very large notice was placed in the Daily News costing the taxpayer almost half a million rupees asking for ideas to prepare the budget which would benefit and satisfy all the people. We wish to suggest that the 550,000 politicians and top public servants who craftly got themselves absolved in regard to the payment of income tax, be now made liable even if it affects the Minister and his Secretary and all his cabinet colleagues personally. They cannot live such comfortable lives at the expense of the mere 152,000 taxpayers. Salaries, perks, huge allowances, several cars at their disposal, several drivers at their disposal, petrol for several cars at Rs. 68 per litre, entertainment allowances and another per day to attend Parliament, free phones, ad-lib calls-free, free mobile phones, unnecessary joy rides abroad with stupendous allowances, free houses, electricity and water bills paid for, pensions, car permits and a host of other benefits, including sumptuous meals at cut prices. It will take a bold Finance Minister like Dr. Sarath Amunugama to implement this, however unpalatable it may be, and we feel that he has the guts and the grit of a member of the prestigious Sri Lanka Administrative Service. These men were trained in the art of fairplay and justice. The self-employed comprise 75% of the country. Each time the cost of living goes up, the salaries of only the government servants go up because politicians are also benefitted in the process. The mercantile employees and the self-employed also like to enjoy the perks and trips abroad that others enjoy with the taxpayers money. If you distribute tax forms to every business establishment down all trunk roads, you will net in at least one million taxpayers rather than keep on strangling the existing taxpayers. G. H. Perera, Nugegoda. Iran prepared for pre-emptive strike For the last month or so there has been virulent anti-Iran propaganda against the development of her nuclear plant at Bushehr. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the body that monitors the activity at the nuclear plant at Bushehr. Western governments have a long record of pressurizing such bodies to produce the findings they want, regardless of the realities on the ground, and then distorting and misrepresenting their reports for political purposes. The U.S. which had originally demanded the investigation into Iran's nuclear programme in order to put political pressure on Iran had apparently been demanding that any suspected breaches be referred to the U.N. Security Council. The possibility was strongly rejected by Iran, which knows that the U.S. wants to manipulate and exploit the issue in her favour as she did to attack Iraq. As the U.S. presidential elections is drawing near the demand by the U.S. against the nuclear development programme is growing more strident with suggestions of a pre-emptive strike on Bushehr by the U.S. and Israel. Iran angered by such aggressive rhetorics hit back with a warning of its own. Defence minister Ali Shamkhani told a correspondent for Al-Jazeera television on August 18th that pre-emptive strikes were not the exclusive preserve of the U.S. or Israel; If Iran's security was threatened or the U.S. planned to attack Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr, it will not hesitate to launch a pre-emptive strike. "We will not sit with arms folded to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventative operations which the Americans talks about are not their monopoly," said Shamkhani; "America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present from Khost to Qandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Persian Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," he declared. Rejecting claims that the U.S. and Israel are separate entities Shamkhani said "where Israel is concerned we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. "You cannot separate the two." General Mohammed Bagher Zolqadr, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the Iranian press on 18th August as saying that Tehran will strike the Israel reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, "If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequences of the move. All these aggressive moves would surely have been implemented by the U.S. together with Israel, if not for the unexpected resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. It appears that the U.S. policy makers have been chastened, as the ground situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is detrimental and becoming worse by the day. The rhetorics against Iran appear to be more bravado than real. The U.S. & Israel know that Iran is strong and steadfast and not like Iraq or any other Muslim country. Saybhan Samat, Rajagiriya. Let us be thankful for small mercies. I mean let us be thankful this country has got away with only having to pay 'Her Ladyship's' air fare and expenses to sight see in Athens. What if she had run and won a medal, whether bronze, silver or gold? Most unlikely of course she could have had a second fluke win, but oh dear, WHAT it would have cost us, the country, I mean, knowing something of her grasping greed after winning two medals. The earlier one, a Silver and the Bronze at the Sydney Olympics in 2002. Sri Lanka would not have possessed the wherewithal to feed her greed - if she had been a winner this time too. Mercifully, she is not even an 'also ran.' Let us count our mercies, Let us also, seeing the real Susanthika, simply consider her a fallen idol. Except that somebody should 'swing' for all the valuable foreign exchange paid out lavishly simply to allow her to make asses of us all, but, who will pay is the million dollar question, not this ageing athlete, I'll bet. M.S., Colombo 5. I went to the Colombo International Book Fair 2004 on the second day on the 7th of September, 2004 mainly to attend the seminar on anti-piracy. I also went round the book stalls later. I found that in the National Publications Department stall there were no Tamil books for sale or for exhibition. Perhaps, the department has ceased publications of Tamil books, in spite of the fact that Tamil had also been made an official language by the government and efforts are being made by government and other bodies interested in bringing about amity between the two language groups in the country. The department could at least have exhibited Tamil books published earlier. It is not because that there was no room in the stall to exhibit Tamil books that the books have not been exhibited but because there was no room in the hearts of the bureaucracy. One of the major causes for the deadlock in the ethnic problem in our country is the bureaucracy. Take the case of the name board at De Saram Road (spelt De Seram in the board) at the new Nurses Quarters. The board gives the description of the place only in Sinhala and English. In English it is given as No 200 Nurses Quarters (!). There is no indication in Tamil. The board is very large; the letters are also very large, about a foot in height. A reduction of a few inches of the letters could have been made and Tamil could have been accommodated at least in small letters. But the bureaucracy does not want to have Tamil in the board in which there is enough room. There is no room in the hearts of the bureaucracy. That is the problem. A few decades ago I wrote in the Press pointing out that there were no instructions in Tamil in the corridors of the National Hospital about the visitors keeping to the right and not spitting out. I had in that letter stated that, perhaps, as the Tamil speaking people were cultured and observe these rules no instructions to them were needed but as the Sinhalese people, were, perhaps, not that cultured they had to be given those instructions. Some of the papers even wrote editorials on it. But still the instructions are not displayed properly in Tamil! Under these circumstances can any government even if it reaches an agreement with the Tamil speaking people get the agreement implemented. That is the crux of the matter in the ethnic problem. Arul, Colombo 13 Pramuka is and was a registered bank, well and truly supervised by the Central Bank. In the context, Pramuka depositors trusted the efficiency, honesty, integrity and dedicated service of the premier bank supervisory section when, by a press advertisement informed the public to invest money only with the financial institutions registered with the Central Bank and Pramuka well and truly in the list of such institutions. All Government institutions being subjected to annual inspections by internal as well as general audit, Central Bank through their banking supervision section carries out inspections warning the public of any shortcomings. All, including government departments that invested money with Pramuka Bank will agree without a scintilla of doubt that the miserable lack of supervision by the sole authority namely: Central Bank is the 'First Cause' to be blamed for the 'Crash' they seem to make out perhaps to throw a 'Wet Blanket' to cover up their 'sins of omission and commission'? What is the earthly use of maintaining a banking supervision division if the 'head' cannot supervise the 'tails' without misleading 1500 or more depositors. Central Bank has failed through their fault - Through their fault and through their most grievous fault. Tacitly CB must admit "The Fault dear Brutus is not in our Stars" .... and I say, nor is it in others among us and around us - it lies in our own faulty selves. Facts are stranger than fiction for justice sake. C.L. Terence Fernando, Moratuwa. Unjustifiable action of the SLT I am living with my family in a rented annex in Dehiwela. In 1999 I applied to the SLT Ratmalana branch and obtained a telephone in my name for my family and my use. Up to August 18, 2004 I used the telephone without any form of interruption from SLT. I have settled all my telephone bills submitted by the SLT right up to that time before the prompt dates. On the evening of 18th August my telephone was put out of service, because the house including my annex was blacklisted by the SLT, as my landlord (owner of the house) has not paid up the telephone bills. This was done by the DGM (recoveries). It appears that the landlord's telephone nonpayment of bills issue took place some years back. Now only the SLT woke up from its slumber and harassing the wrong person. The correct thing for the SLT in this issue, I think, would be to deal with the landlord directly. If the SLT respects the customer it should write to the customer clarifying the issue before jumping into action. Further, I could not understand how a tenant was made responsible for the landlord's personal telephone bills. I have written this letter, specially, for the information of people living in rented houses already having SLT telephones or intending to install SLT telephones. The information provided in the SLT telephone directory does not mention anything about blacklisting houses. Can there be a rule, or a law in this country making the tenant responsible for the Landlord's debts. The house of the landlord is an immovable property, he will not disown his house and run away, if at all the SLT wants to recover the dues from him it can file legal action against the defaulting Landlord. I would gratefully appreciate if knowledgeable people in this matter would enlighten the customers on this issue. S. Samarasingham, Dehiwela. Legislation to prevent unethical conversion The Buddhasasana Commission Report has recommended that legislation be enacted to prevent unethical conversion. We are aware of large scale conversion of persons from one religion to another, mainly spearheaded by fundamentalist groups. There is no denying the fact that organised unethical conversions takes place, especially among the illiterate and poor, disadvantaged groups. I would wish to refer to a glaring example of one such instance not in relation to a poor illiterate person but in the case of the late Dr. N. M. Perera who was an honest upright politician with no communal or religious prejudices. In his unfinished autobiography he states as follows: "In my last year at S. Thomas, I had been smoothly inveigled into becoming a Christian as a result of slick work on the part of Rev. G. B. Ekanayake. I was rescued just in time by the vigilance of my parents who gently whisked me away from that atmosphere". G. P. Perera, Nugegoda. |
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