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| Sunday, 10 April 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Boodalaya and the Right of Inheritance Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake The recent forthright comments by President Kumaratunga about Thamange Boodalaya referring to the disputes over the so-called privatisation of the CPC and CEB has led to much discussion as to what exactly is anybody's boodalaya, or one's inherited wealth or estate. Some were of the view that this country is not an estate bequeathed to any person to do as one wishes, even amounting to giving a part of it to the LTTE by deed of gift. Such criticism could be made of the UNP and its MoU that is still in operation although very much in the breach. However, the same critics are conveniently silent on the issue of whether the Tamils of Sri Lanka too do not have a right to consider this land as part of their own boodalaya or natural inheritance, whatever the merits of giving a deed of gift to the LTTE. Countering the President's statement that the CPC and CEB are not anyone's boodalaya, there are voices from those whose lips are red with betel chew that both the CPC and CEB are not part of anyone's personal inheritance as to give one the right to privatise them. The point being well taken, there is also the need to ask when the CPC and CEB became the boodalaya of the trade unions in those loss making organisations as to prevent them being re-structured? Taking this line of thinking a little further one has to question the right of these trade unions or their leaders to hold the public of this country to ransom with blackouts and the stopping of fuel distribution, only to demonstrate their inherited ownership rights, if any, over these two organisations. The question of boodalaya comes only when one considers re-structuring these organisations. Why is it that trade unions of the CPC, for example, do not act in a manner to demonstrate their inherited rights to this institution, and prevent the overstaffing of it by thousands, making the country lose millions each year to keep it running? Was it because some politicians who became ministers who were in charge of the CPC thought it was their own private boodalaya that they packed it with excess staff, and paid them inflated salaries to boot? Is it not a fact that the voices that are heard loudest against any privatisation of the CPC, even when it is not on the table, are those of persons who fear a golden handshake in the future when true re-structuring takes place? Is this not a case of them making an effort to increase their own personal wealth, to the detriment of the public at large, so that they may bequeath more boodalaya to their families? When one considers the CEB, from what right of inheritance do the trade unions there that oppose re-structuring of such a massively loss making organisation, without even offering any proposals to stop the haemorrhage of funds that could help it to be more profitable, and serve the future power and energy needs of the country? Is it the right of boodalaya or inheritance that has prevented the trade unions whether of lesser employees or engineers and higher ranks to take action to expose and stop the corruption in the CEB that has become a major cancer threatening the very future of that publicly owned institution? Or, could it be that they consider their rights of inheritance over the CEB to be so great that all or most of them join in the corruption, once again to increase their known personal wealth, while the public are made to suffer? The matter of political boodalaya is not anything new to this country and its people. Most ministers of whatever political hue have always considered their ministries as their own boodalaya and even worse their personal fiefdom, to do as they wish, for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of the public. Although it was the UNP that ultimately destroyed it, the CTB, once a model public sector institution that gave full meaning to nationalised transport, was ruined for destruction by the UNP due to various ministers treating it as their own personal boodalaya and packing it with so many people that at one stage it had more than seven employees to a bus, with a fleet of 4,000 vehicles. In the same manner so many other corporations, authorities and institutions in the public sector have been treated as the political inheritance of ministers and even transient governments, and used to solve the problem of chronic unemployment in the country, whether those institutions could carry such burden or not. The boodalaya attitude becomes even worse when a politician seeks to solve the unemployment problem in one's own district or electorate through an institution over which he or she has power and control. This is the same with the commissions earned in corrupt tender procedures for the procurement of goods and the provision of services to the public. Now that the issue of thamange boodalaya has been brought into the spotlight, it will be good if this whole concept of political boodalaya is discussed much more and with greater vigour so that the very concept could be wiped out of our political system. Of course you will say that I am having fanciful dreams of a better future for Sri Lanka. But, why not even dream when the reality is always evasive? |
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