Government suffers teething pain, while people suffer greater pain

Teething is the process by which an infant’s first teeth emerge through the gums. It usually occurs when an infant is between 6 and 10 months old and usually causes discomfort and pain to the infant. Teething sometimes becomes painful to both babies and parents. Some infants tend to behave in a cranky manner before their new teeth emerge.

Our infant JVP/NPP government seems to be going through such a process. The varied silly statements made by different members of the Cabinet tends to make our government appear particularly cranky. Indeed, one minister claimed the island-wide blackout we suffered months ago was caused by a monkey!

It made headlines worldwide, and the country became a laughing stock. Subsequently our minister of agriculture suddenly discovered monkeys were causing agriculture yield to drop. He called for an island-wide survey of monkeys, peacocks and a variety of other denizens of the wild whom he held responsible for the drop in production.
Fortunately it did not occur to the minister that wild boar probably caused more crop damage than the monkey population.

Pity the poor wildlife officers and farmers standing alert to count the number of wild boar entering farmlands at night. As wild boar are downright dangerous, government would have had to issue firearms to both farmers and wildlife rangers to protect themselves from the beasts. 

Government may then have had to call out the STF, to protect the farmers from some militant group which could demand farmers and wildlife officers to hand their weapons over; on the basis of “on pain of death” - implying if anyone didn’t comply, they would be killed as punishment. 

Mama mia it brings back nightmares of the 1988 - 1989 period when insurgents did in fact make such demands.

Perhaps this is what caused former President Wickremesinghe to offer to tutor the new government on governance.
Prior to being elected to power last year, the JVP together with its breakaway group pulled students and trade unions on to the streets at even the ‘hint of a thought’ of privatising loss-making state owned enterprises (SOEs). Today a government-appointed ‘high level committee’ has identified dozens of state institutions to be either liquidated or privatised.

Among the institutions identified are the Kotalawala Defence University (KDU) Hospital and the Sri Jayawardenapura Hospital. According to the ‘high-level committee’, the aforesaid institutions are not viable. Is government kite-flying to check public reaction to a possible privatisation of health services in the country?

What individuals appointed to the high level committee seem to have forgotten, is that government hospitals are not profit oriented organisations. They are the only health service providers an ordinary worker or peasant can afford to seek treatment from. The plethora of private hospitals which dot our cities is beyond their reach. 

In his 2025 budget, President Dissanayake set apart Rs. 20 billion to bail out the loss-making government-owned Sri Lankan Airlines. The state-run airlines lost 1,960 million rupees in the 7 months to October 2024. Rather than propping up prestigious loss-making projects, should the government not concentrate on improving essential services like health care and education facilities on which more than 80% of our population depends on?

Recently a female victim of assault sought surgery at a leading private hospital in Colombo for a broken wrist. On enquiring the cost of the surgery, the patient was informed the cost of the plate needed for surgery alone, would cost LKR 850,000/-. This was without hospital charges, doctors’ charges, nursing care, surgery costs and post-surgery care.

According to IndiaMART the cost of a titanium plate for wrist surgery amounts to Indian rupees 500/-.

The patient was removed to the national hospital and the surgery was successfully performed without cost to the patient. It is time that the government regulates providers of private medical care and others of their ilk, who are fleecing a hapless public. 

It has been over six months since government was elected to power. Yesterday it was announced the fuel prices had been reduced by a nominal Rs. 10/-. The price of cooking gas though was been increased by a whopping Rs.410/-. 

The new regime which promised much has so far proved little.