Ego takes precedence over social contract and ethics

Sri Lanka has suffered dearly due to the egoistic attitude of leaders of former governments, trade unions and rebel leaders

The appointment of a new Auditor General has now been over politicised and caught in an egocentric conflict between the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) and the Opposition parties.  

The NPP’s tendency towards rejecting or ignoring any suggestion by the Opposition and the desire on the part of the Opposition parties to see that any name recommended by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake for the post of Auditor General being rejected by the Constitutional Council (CC) is very clear. 

This is nothing but egocentric politics disregarding the larger interest of the country as well as the people and dishonouring their own social contract. Opposition parties accuse the President that he wants to appoint an Auditor General of his choice to cover up corruption in the Government while the Government seems to want a National Audit Office that would support or at least not hinder its policies and especially the anti-corruption drive. 

Sri Lanka has suffered dearly due to the egoistic attitude of leaders of former governments, trade unions and rebel leaders. Mahinda Rajapaksa Government in December 2007 revoked the work permit of Peter Hill, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SriLankan Airlines who was seconded from the Emirates following the SriLankan Airline under Hill refused seats to President Rajapaksa and 35 officials who were visiting Britain, as seats had already been booked. 

Emirates later sold all its 43.6 percent share of the SriLankan airline and the Management of the airline became fully locally owned. Rajapaksa appointed his brother-in-law, a tea planter as Chairman. The airline was running profitably with a foreign national as its head when MR assumed office as President but after this incident the downward spiral of the airline commenced. The rest was history.    

Another occasion when the ego played highly negative role against democracy was when the former Inspector General of Police (IGP) C.D.Wickramarathne attained his retirement age in March 2023. President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted him two three-month extensions with the approval of the CC. When the President recommended a third extension for him, the CC declined. However, Wickremesinghe gave him not one but two more extensions disregarding the refusal of the CC. And the appointment of Wickramaratne’s successor, Deshabandu Tennakoon was also surrounded by a similar controversy.

Similarly, President Wickremesinghe as the finance minister refused to release funds for the local government elections in 2023 for which the Election Commission (EC) had fixed a date and the Supreme Court also had ordered the Finance Ministry to release funds for it. The precedents set with these two incidents might impact the independence of the EC and the Supreme Court in the future as well. 

Doctors attached to the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) have launched a trade union campaign against what they call the refusal by the Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa to implement provisions of an agreement between the GMOA and the Health Ministry. Under this campaign the doctors, among others, would not prescribe any medicine to be purchased from private pharmacies when shortage exists in government hospitals. Simply, if a patient comes to a doctor at a government hospital and a necessary medicine or a vaccine is in short supply in that hospital, the doctor would simply say ‘no medicine.’ If the patient requested to issue a prescription to purchase the medicine from a pharmacy, he would decline it. What sort of a heart a doctor should have to do so?

What a crime! What then can the patient do? This is nothing but playing with the lives of the patients. Doctors’ demands may be justifiable. Yet, what is the right they have to put the lives of the patients at risk? Who gave that right to them? This is highly egoistic and highhanded decision on the part of the GMOA. The only option left to the patient in such a situation is to channel a doctor at a private hospital, if he/she can afford to. This is in a way pressurising the patients to visit the doctor at private hospitals. They are pressurising the Government to meet their demands while pushing the patients to consult them at private hospitals for a fee. If the patient is from an affluent family, he would not have gone to a government hospital. 

Ego is such that we have seen hundreds if not thousands of lives lost during the war due to arrogant decisions by leaders of both the belligerent parties.                   

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