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Cutting of CEB melon and allied matters
Tuesday, 4 July 2006 - 6:20 AM SL Time
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The UNP`s offer to cooperate with the government is salutary. The two major parties have always been at loggerheads, with each other over all national issues from privatisation to terrorism. Such cooperation is long overdue. But their efforts will reach fruition only if they stem from a genuine desire to help the country rather than from an ulterior motive to tide themselves over till time is opportune to resume fighting. Reconciliation has never been possible as, in making overtures to each other, they are driven by the cunning of the proverbial spider that invited a fly to his parlour.
Adversity, it is said, makes strange bedfellows. The UNP is desperate to prevent further crossovers. The government is wary of being remote controlled by the JVP: They don`t see eye to eye on many issues, the most pressing being the CEB reforms on the cards. The government may have thought of cutting the JVP down to size by flirting with the UNP.
The government is skating on thin ice in that if it joins forces with the UNP at the expense of the JVP, it will be placing itself at the mercy of its arch rival, which is all out to get a general election. An Executive President without control over Parliament is `no better than a peon` to borrow a phrase from the late Mr. Premadasa, who used it to describe his position under President JRJ. The UNP`s plan is obvious. It wants to drive in the wedge between the JVP and the UPFA, make the government dependent on it for survival, ditch it and win a future general election so that President Rajapakse will be in the same predicament as President Kumaratunga under the UNF government.
The best opportunity for the two parties to cooperate came when the UNF captured power in Parliament in 2001. President Kumartunga and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe could have formed a unity government. But Chandrika was piqued and Ranil ambitious. Chandrika wanted to regain the power she was losing to Ranil, who was eyeing the Presidency. The UNP pinned its hopes on the LTTE and Chandrika on the JVP. Chandrika won the day. Chandrika and Ranil became friends again only after Mahinda Rajapakse became a threat to them. Had Chandrika and Ranil cooperated at that time, Ranil the Prime Minister could have become President and Chandrika would still have been in active politics at least as the Opposition Leader with Mahinda relegated to the political attic. Chandrika in her halcyon days was so intoxicated with power and so averse to any cooperation with the Opposition that she used to deride the proponents of a national government by attributing their calls to what she termed jathika andu valippuwa (`National government epilepsy`).
Apart from politics, the cutting of the CEB melon allegedly into six (public companies) is a high voltage issue that needs to be handled with care. The trade unions are on the warpath threatening to plunge the country into darkness and vowing to abort the reforms even if they are passed by Parliament. The dispute has turned out to be a political goldmine for the JVP, which will exploit it to the fullest to gain mileage. However, it is not the resistance from the TUs or the opposition from the JVP that should really concern the government and the UNP but the future of the country, whose development hinges on power at reasonable prices. Successive governments have made scrambled eggs of public institutions by way of restructuring and/or privatisation. None of them have yielded intended results. The CTB is a case in point. It was turned into `peoplised` companies and the remedy proved to be worse than the malady. Today, it is an empty shell.
Haste ought to be avoided in handling vital institutions, as the public interest doesn`t have a cat in hell`s chance if restructuring leads to privatisation, as feared. The CEB is, no doubt, in deep trouble and something drastic has to be done to avert disaster. But it behoves the government and the Opposition to tread cautiously and act wisely without being carried away by the numbers they can muster together in Parliament to enact laws.
Hemin, hemin or festina lente is the best policy. Let there be adequate public discussion and let the voices of dissent be heeded.
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