Courtesy The Island

In the nineties with the emergence of the Newly Industrialised Economies (NIEs) or so-called Asian Giants or Asian Miracle, theorists all over the world began to talk about Easternisation” as against Westernisation”, Asianness”, Borderless World” and Blurring of Borders”. In present day Sri Lanka, we witness a new kind of blurring of borders”, that is between Viyath Maga and Jara Maga”. The Sunday night (13 March) newscasts and Monday dailies (14 March) flashed a news item, i.e. Chairman of the Committee of Public Enterprises (COPE) lambasting the Chairperson and her cohorts of the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) over its handling of the fire onboard the crude oil carrier MT New Diamond and the sinking of X-Press Pearl carrying chemicals in 2020 and 2021 respectively. With this news item it came into the public domain for the first time that this Chairperson is an activist of Viyath Maga. Still we do not know why these Viyath Maga” grandees entered parliamentary politics and hold office. If they had entered the arena with the intention of cleaning the Augean Stables and changing the system” they should be reminded that, Systems Theory” is a very important management tool for the managers as well as the politicians. But I doubt whether the people who were harping on changing the system” had an iota of knowledge of the Systems Theory. Space do not permit me to explain what the Systems Theory is. Instead of introducing clean” politics and effective management tools they all have fallen into this quagmire and traversing along the path taken by their elder cousins” proving mere grandiloquence does not give us foreign exchange, gas, fuel, cement, drugs, feretiliser, flour or essential foodstuffs. All of them have proven their inefficiency, from the top man who heads the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

According to The Island report, only Rs. 51 million out of, estimated Rs. 3,480 million, due from New Diamond, had been received as compensation by MEPA. Though the compensation in respect of X-Press Pearl had been estimated at USD 37 million, the shipowners had agreed to pay only USD 29.5 million. The Chairperson of MEPA had admitted that an organisation that had represented the interests of ship owners and insurers had advised the MEPA, too. It’s a case of getting advice from the mother of the biggest rogue!

COPE’s allegation that the MEPA had collaborated with the shipowners to prevent them from paying for environmental damage in the first case and the organisation that represented the interests of shipowners and insures would have been able to manipulate the whole process to the advantage of shipowners and insures in the second case is indictable that should receive urgent attention of law enforcement authorities in the context of the present economic, political and social turmoil. It is very conspicuous that this allegation, coming from another Viyath Maga” grandee, whatever the motive. We wish the Chairman of COPE courage to investigate Litro, another failed agency headed by another well connected Viyath Maga” activist and the members of the sugar mafia.

The MEPA deal” questions the credentials of just an attorney-at -law who had performed as the Legal Officer of the said Agency, prior to being appointed as its Chairperson, that involves highly technical matters related to marine biology and marine ecology. Soon after the formation of this government a Viyath Maga” neophyte was appointed as the Chairman of the National Library and Documentation Centre, an institution headed by eminent library scientists and top-level academics from its inception. To his credit he has translated into Sinhala the autobiography of a Viyath Maga” State Minister who is in charge of marine-related matters. This person participated in a late night SLRC show, Subhani Rath” singing Hindi popular hits. Very soon he was rewarded with SLRC chairmanship. The man who had exposed the garlic racket was thrown into wilderness. The replacement of MILCO novice is growing grass promising us to give milk powder in late April. He is wise enough not to carry out an islandwide artificial insemination programme!

SENA THORADENIYA