Monkeying around with truth and transparency

Late Sunday morning, the lights literally, all went out in Sri Lanka. During the regime of the good old Rajapaksa, the country would have been informed that it was the work of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But all of that has now changed; instead, the Minister informed us it was the work of a monkey.

Wow! What ingenuity, a single monkey blacking out the country in a moment of time. Our new government which promised to drain the pond apparently has been drained of ideas. Believe it or not, this is exactly what a minister of the better than thou, NPP government gave as an excuse for a country-wide blackout. 

We also hear stories that the Chinese-built power station at Norochcholai too faced some problem or the other. What does a monkey playing around at a substation in Panadura, has anything to do with the Chinese-built power station at Norochcholai leading to a country-wide blackout, we will not pretend to understand. 

But the different excuses prattled out by politicians and officials bring to mind the Sinhala colloquialism ‘Api Konde Bandapu Cheennu Newei’ (we are not Chinamen with our hair knotted into a bun).  

The new demon facing us Lankans in the era of President A.K. Dissanayake seems to be the monkey. Just a short month ago, we learned that monkeys were the cause of a shortfall in coconut production. Now we have a monkey blacking out the entire country in a matter of minutes. We can only hope that we do not hear the medical fraternity warning us that monkeypox has entered our shores.

The long and short of this latest monkey business is that this government too, like all its predecessors is not telling us the truth. The people are not fools who believe every word that falls from some politician’s mouth. Mr. Minister, the people want transparency, not excuses.

The choice before the people at the polls was and is very limited. Most believed that those who rose up in arms ‘on behalf of the common man’, would be more truthful and accessible. On Friday, this paper exposed the travails of a lady from Kandy who unsuccessfully attempted to meet the minister in charge of education.

After being driven from pillar-to-post, from local authorities to the PM’s office, the lady has now given up in disgust. The verdict? Nothing really seems to change except for the names of politicians and political parties.
The fact is that our NPP government appears to still be in the mindset of being in the political opposition. It continues to criticise its political opponents without sorting out problems. 

We like the pictures of our Prime Minister clearing refuse on our beaches. Perhaps a better idea may be to get our environment police to mingle with the crowds, for example ‘Galle Face Green’ and encourage litterbugs to pick up their litter, rather than task the ‘environmentalists’ to clear up other people’s litter. 

This is not to say, however, that setting an example of ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ is bad. 

Neither is it correct to say the new government has not lived up to its promises to set a new culture. One of the best examples was the singing of the National Anthem in Tamil at the official Independence Day celebrations. It was done with aplomb.

The new authorities have also made it easier for one and all to visit different parts of the country with the minimum fuss. Gone are the military personnel at checkpoints. It makes travel, especially for minority communities less intimidating. 

Though the military is not as aggressive as earlier, the trauma they caused especially to minority groups visiting areas of the country outside their hometowns, is a less tense experience. The government is also in the process of moving military camps out of private lands in the north.

Even political parties in the north felt that such an action would not be possible. But the NPP government is making it happen. 

On the hunger front, unfortunately, the government has failed. Around 24% of our people live below the poverty line.  Their circumstances make it possible to either feed or educate their children. It is the government’s duty to solve this problem. Else, these children are doomed to be sons and daughters of a lesser God.