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| Sunday, 25 January 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.
God and the earthquake in Iran It is indeed tragic that tens of thousands of men, women and children perished in Bam during the recent earthquake in Iran. The latest reports indicated that the number so perished is a staggering 40,000 not to speak of tens of thousands of those others injured and rendered homeless. It is understood that the residential places made of mud in this poor city some 600 km off Tehran made the damage to be of such magnitude and that had they been made of reinforced cement concrete the harm would have been much less. I do hereby express my condolences and profoundest heartfelt sympathies with all those affected. But there arises in my mind a curious question. All those in that country as well as some 90 per cent of the world population believe in God in whatever terminology. He is known in different religions. The attributes of God in both Islam and Christianity are just the same. He is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent among other things. If God were all knowing He should have known of the calamity beforehand. If He were omnibenevolent as it is generally believed then He should have thought of some strategy to prevent this nearly unimaginable human devastation. And finally, if he is all-powerful he should have easily prevented this mammoth-like human tragedy. It seems that God's wrath is almost always targeted at the down-trodden. Therefore, I am logically driven to the conclusion that God is neither omniscient, onmibenevolent nor omnipotent. And this patent truism must be expressed fearlessly disregarding any popular opposition to it to be naturally anticipated. Dharmapala Senaratne, Is this the right thing to do? Recently it was reported that some youth who were trying to migrate illegally after paying 40-50,000 rupees were caught by the police and were thrown into jail. We Sri Lankans are always very good at quick solutions to problems without eradicating the root cause. We must think why these men were trying to leave illegally paying such large sums of money. On one hand even with that amount of money, which is usually borrowed on large interest or raised by selling the last family treasure - they cannot find a job here. On the other hand, they are lured by the agents who obviously had been successful in sending at least some others for jobs abroad. Now the question here is should these youth be put in jail? This is adding insult to injury. Rather the agents should be caught and put in jail. Shouldn't the youth be given the opportunity to go legally - so that they earn some legitimate earnings. Instead of throwing them into the jail and making them more frustrated and pushing them into learning a few tricks of how to become a criminal, we should look at their situation more practically - analyse the reason why they are compelled to do this. It is the fault of our system - which does not provide opportunities for these youngsters to earn a few halal bucks which pushed them to seek illegal means - let's rectify this. It is said that some 18 billion is to be sent on rebuilding of Iraq - why don't we send our youth after training them in carpentry, masonry and other handy work, to work and earn there? Would any politician come forward to look into the possibility? Dr. (Mrs.) Mareena Thaha Reffai, Highlighting matters of public interest I have read with interest the letter on the above that appeared in the Readers' Forum in the Sunday Observer of December 14. Once a letter on a common matter concerning the public is published in the newspapers the authorities concerned should as a matter of policy reply it or take remedial measures immediately. The ministry concerned should also ensure that the organisation or department concerned does this. It is a well known fact that senior officials in government departments and corporations get copies of all newspapers delivered either to their homes or offices at the expense of the tax-payer. Anyone walking into a government office around 9 or 9.30 in the morning can see the staff reading the newspapers. So there is no excuse to say they did not see the shortcomings indicated. Until a few years ago it was the duty of all departmental heads to send their, reports on any adverse reports in the day's newspapers to the Press Officer of the Ministry with a copy to the Secretary of the Ministry. Failure to do so would result in the ministry concerned sending a clipping of the adverse report to the department concerned and asking for their observations/explanation. Therefore, I personally don't think it is necessary for the newspaper concerned to forward the letters to the authorities concerned. Also there is no purpose in offering a weekly prize to the best letter published as letters to the editor are written in the 'Public Interest' and not for a letter writing competition. Tilak Fernando, The solution to the problem today is not a national government or cohabitation or a General election. Any one of these will bring the country back to square one. The free thinking people of this country know that the root of the problem lies in the mandate given by the people. In 1999 a mandate was given to the President then in 2001 and 2002 at the general elections and the PC elections respectively a mandate was given to the government. Now the conflict lies between these two mandates. The arguments put forward in this controversy are always in favour of the political party to which the speaker is inclined. The best solution therefore is to hold a Presidential election which will save a lot of money, labour, time and most of all valuable human lives. This can be done only if our leaders are willing to put country before self. P.A. Binduhewa, Need for a Public Management (Responsibility) Act This refers to the text of the Wijerama Endowment lecture by Dr. Lucian Jayasuriya serialized in the Daily News recently. A matter that struck me was the callous indifference and failure on the part of the authorities, (who commissioned high powered committees like task forces, committees of investigation cabinet and ministerial committees to study, research and make recommendations etc. on issues of national interest), towards implementing their recommendations. At the end of the day after spending much time, effort and money drawn from the public coffers, the net result is that the reports of these expert groups are laid to rest gathering dust in the table drawers of senior officials. We recall with dismay in particular the reports submitted by the Administrative Reforms Committee, Financial Reforms Committees of the 1990s, Pension Reforms Committee and the Salaries Committee headed by Tissa Devendra. Due to the ever frequent strikes in the health sector, mostly due to anomalies in the salary structures, there was a proposal from the GMOA and the SLMA made three years ago, as reported in Dr. Jayasuriya's article, that an independent Arbitration Board should be established to settle these questions. In fact in a letter of mine published six years ago, in the center page of the CDN of Thursday the 25th September titled "Salary Issue & Strikes" this same suggestion was made. The only difference was that the Arbitration Board suggested by me was meant to cover the entire public service since salary structures of different services are all inter related. The health authorities owe an explanation to the public as to what action was taken. From recent times there is in place at the Treasury a division called the Management Services whose task is to improve service delivery in the public service. Recommendations and suggestions made by the public in letters published in the newspapers should attract its attention. At least this division should wake up and publish replies to such letters to keep to public informed of the action taken or not taken with reasons, on these valuable suggestions from Trade Unions and the public. It is time that analogous to the Fiscal Management (Responsibility) Act of 2002, a new law to be called the Public Management (Responsibility) Act be passed requiring the Minister in charge of the issue to submit reports to Parliament explaining the reasons for not implementing recommendations of Commissions appointed by the government and explaining six monthly the progress of implementation in the case of those accepted by the government. Leo Fernando, Vanik issues cheques without funds Vanik Incorporation recently gave an undertaking to its debenture holders that it would be paying the interest which was due one year ago on its debenture, in three instalments. I was shocked to find that the interest cheques were drawn on an account in Pan Asia bank without funds in the account. The cheques have been signed by Justin Meegoda, who is a Director of Pan Asia Bank. Meegoda has addressed a letter dated 28th November 2003 to the debenture holders requesting them not to present the cheques dated 30th November 2003 for payment. He states that "I wish to make a personal appeal to you to hold on to these cheques until 15th December 2003 prior to depositing same in your Bank. I am making this request due to a circumstance beyond the company's control, where the remittance earmarked for meeting this payment has been delayed." Recent articles appearing in the newspapers have given publicity to Pan Asia bank mobilising Rs. 100 million in deposits in one day. I hope the Board of Pan Asia bank gives due consideration to this matter. Ruwan Jayasinghe, On reading the articles of Lakshman and Lucien under "Observations" in Sunday Observer of January 11, 2004, I confess that Sri Lankan politics is rather poly-tricks infested with thugs hooligans and scoundrels as politicians. as a result the country has deteriorated into the present quandary of racial and religious conflicts. We, the voter cattle too, are also responsible for it as we do not vote for the policies of the political parties but for persons who brag and bray on political platforms, promising us moon and stars into our hands. As long as we allow religious prelates and dignitaries such as Mahanayake Theras, holy fathers high priests of Hindu temples and Islamic mosques to interfere into politics, there is no way out than bring out country down to disgrace as "Hell" of the Indian ocean but not to preserve as "Pearl of the Indian Ocean". As we did not and do not have patriotic national leaders to guide us on the line of late-Mahagama Sekera's "National Anthem" - "Mage Dheshaya Awathikaranumena, Piyanani", let the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka put the five precepts of Lord Buddha into practice and redeem the country before it is put into bonfire by the unscrupulous politicians who were and are the ruin of us all! May sagacity guide us all! M. Raamachandran, |
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