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Lajja! Vili Lajja!
Friday, 26 May 2006 - 3:51 AM SL Time
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On how to resolve the conflict bleeding the country white, parliamentarians are divided; on how to develop the ailing economy, they are divided, and, to cut a long list short, never are they united on anything under the sun save feathering their nests collectively. We hear they are in for another pay hike. They euphemistically call it rectification of salary anomalies like the health workers who often get anomaly seizures followed by strike fever. Some people seem to have all the luck!
According to the new salary scheme, ordinary MPs will get the same salary as High Court Judges, Deputy Ministers as Appeal Court Judges` and Ministers as Supreme Court Judges`. The Prime Minister`s salary will be equal to that of the Chief Justice. Judges and politicians are, to say the least, chalk and cheese. It takes years of learning and training for one to be a judge, while any con man with or without schooling could be a parliamentarian. Even political rejects could become MPs via the National List through a process of bootlicking. We hope the desire of MPs to be equal to judges in terms of emolument won`t, with the passage of time, lead to a demand that they too be allowed to participate in the dispensation of justice. One dreads to think of it!
A few moons ago, when Evo Morales, upon being elected President of Bolivia, took a pay cut with his lawmakers following suit, we said in these columns he would be the hate figure of our honourable men and women because of the example he set. Morales, through that gesture, empathised with the Bolivian poor and his example has gone a long way in winning the hearts and minds of the people. One may have difficulty in agreeing with him on his rollercoaster ride to socialism but he has demonstrated true statesmanship and endeared himself and his cause to the people languishing in abject poverty the world over.
In this country, about one half of the population lives in poverty and over twenty five per cent of children are malnourished. The health sector is plagued with lack of facilities and drugs. Schools are being closed down. Students who qualify for higher education are left out as universities are not equipped to increase intakes. The cost of living is soaring. The fixed income earners have reached a point beyond which they cannot tighten their belts. Workers are demanding pay hikes and the best brains are leaving for greener pastures. True, a cash-strapped state cannot solve all those problems overnight. But politicians who want the people to practise austerity must be prepared to do the same.
A salary is something that one should get in return for some service. What is the service those pay-hike-hungry MPs and ministers have rendered to the country? The country is where it is thanks to the present day lawmakers and their predecessors. They have only been practising `the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other`, as Ameringer said.
Should they be paid anything at all for trading abuse and punches or hitting Members` private parts with mobile phones? In the past, we at least could take school children to the public gallery to see their representatives in action. We were lucky to have some statesmen in the House at that time. But, today, parents would rather take their children to a fish market rather than to Parliament. Remember how a group of school children in the public gallery, frightened by fisticuffs below, began to cry, a few years ago?
Fidel Castro`s reaction to a Forbes magazine article, which accuses him of having millions of US dollars in a foreign account is worthy of mention in respect of politicians and their thirst for money. Castro has said he will resign forthwith if it could be proved that he has a single dollar in a foreign account! (Now all what the CIA, which has been trying to get rid of him for decades in vain, has to do to silence him is not to send a bullet through his head or instigate dissidents to stage a coup but to find a foreign account in his name with a single dollar.) The million dollar question is: How many Sri Lankan politicians can repeat what Castro has said?
Yesterday, we repeated on the opposite page a picture of a group of poor children sans shoes walking to school. It had prompted one of our readers to suggest that the needy school children be given shoes free of charge. That picture provides a window on the socio-economic conditions in most parts of the country. And parliamentarians are asking for pay hikes.
Shame! Damn shame! Or Lajja, Vili lajja!
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