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The pump question
Tuesday, 10 October 2006 - 4:47 AM SL Time
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Once a dipsomaniac, who had clambered up a kitul palm to quench his thirst with the pot that cheers, was challenged by the tapper: `What the hell are you doing over there?` The other, already in high spirits, answered calmly: `I was looking for some grass for my cattle?` `Do you get grass on trees?` the tapper demanded to know. `There isn`t any. That`s why I am getting down,` said the tippler sliding down the palm. The moral of the toddy tale is: Sri Lankans have innovative answers to all questions. They also have questions to which there need not be any answers. For example, whenever a Sri Lankan sees someone eating, he can`t help asking: Are you eating?
It is that legendary tapper-tippler duo that one may have remembered on reading a news item on the CPC fuel pumps, in the Sunday Island. Over 1,500 pumps in the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) run filling stations, our news items revealed, didn`t come with the facility to set the price per litre above Rs. 100.00. The answers that some CPC bigwigs, both past and present, have given to our questions on the pump controversy are interesting.
The CPC says it has overcome the problem of the digit constraint by doing away with one of the two decimal places so that rupees could go up to three digits. In other words, the CPC machines are now equipped to accommodate fuel prices up to Rs.999.9(9) per litre. This may send a chill down one`s spine. (A wag says the problem will surface in a few years` time when the CPC will feel the need for four digit prices!)
Sri Lankans are well known for their ingenuity, which is often put to the wrong use. We once heard a government boast that the ticketing machines that the CTB had imported to keep unscrupulous conductors at bay were foolproof. They may have been foolproof but our conductors are no fools. It was only after months, if not years, that the government concerned realised the conductors had successfully altered the machines and were lining their pockets. Among other Sri Lankan innovations is, as we said some time ago, the use of barbed wire to boost the kick of moonshine! If a tree in your neighbour`s garden is giving you trouble, never kick up a row with him. Most Sri Lankans know how to make it wither away. All it takes is a little bit of mercury. (Sorry folks, don`t ask us for detail!)
For someone who has swallowed a dagoba, it is said, an aggala (a kind of sweetmeat) is nothing. So, adjusting the fuel pumps in question may not be a big deal for the CPC which has on its staff multi-talented Sri Lankans. They are well versed in anything but how to run the CPC properly.
Those who have had a finger in the CPC pie, as chairmen or directors, interviewed by the Sunday Island seem to agree that there were no malpractices involving the pump deal. And they have defended the decision to import the machines on the grounds that nobody thought of fuel prices going beyond Rs, 100.00 per litre!
Corporation chiefs are as thick as thieves and wary of exposing one another for reasons best known to themselves. Minster A. H. M. Fowzie doesn`t seem to have taken kindly to the pump deal. Since he apparently has doubts about it, he ought to order a ministerial investigation into it.
It is not only the digits on pumps that cause concern to the public. There are complaints of kerosene being mixed with petrol and diesel with engine oil. The fuel pump operators, being Sri Lankans, are very ingenious, as was said earlier. We reliably learn many of them in Colombo bust thousands of rupees on equestrian affairs daily with the funds they raise with sleight of hand at customers` expense. To the average customer, their sordid operations may not be discernible but it is the duty of the CPC to conduct regular checks and bring the culprits to book. Fuel station owners don`t give two hoots about that kind of cheating as their revenue is not affected.
The CPC says it has issued all its filling stations with necessary equipment to help customers check whether the quantities of fuel they pay for tally with the amounts indicated. If they have the slightest doubt, says the CPC, they are entitled to challenge the filling station personnel to produce those paraphernalia and dispel their doubts. All complaints about the quality of fuel, the CPC says, could be made to its head office.
Strangely, why the customers are not informed of those procedures is the question. Perhaps, the best advertisement for the CPC will be making its filling stations display the rights of customers prominently.
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