{"id":97252,"date":"2020-01-03T15:49:07","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97252"},"modified":"2020-01-03T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:49:07","slug":"the-ugly-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/03\/the-ugly-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ugly Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orpheus Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Tips, Bribery and Commissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tips:- \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tipping \nis something people do, to say thank you for a good service. Sometimes I give \ntips to waiters even if the service is not satisfactory. But advice the \nrecipient(Normally waiters of hotels and restaurants.). I do so as a favour to \nthe poor guys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \ncountries such as Australia, United Kingdom and even Sri Lanka, giving tips is \ndecided by the service recipient. But in the USA it is a way of life. Speciality \nin the hospitality Industry the staff is poorly paid and they depend lot on the \ntips. Standard rate of tipping in the USA is 15% of the billing amount. If you \noccupy a room in a hotel, if you don\u2019t leave $2 on the bed, the house keeping \nstaff will not, do a good job. They may not even change the bed sheets unless \nyou have left the hotel. Tour Guides and drivers keep a bucket near the exit of \nthe bus and ask the tourist to tip them generously. This is all Okay, poor \npeople need to survive in a Capitalist society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bribery:- \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \nis one of the ugliest faces of modern Sri Lanka. It is hard to find the origin \nof bribing. It may have been there since the dawn of the so called civilisation. \nThough there are no proofs people believe even 1000 years ago foreign invaders \nhave bribes Sinhalese feudalistic to get their help to capture the country. \nThere were some proofs that British did that to conquer the country without \nhaving to wage war against the locals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \nproof of bribery been given and taken in the USA from the time European settlers \nsettled, is they have told the world that they practice this, by displaying them \nin all their Movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First \ncase of Bribery by a Government minister was exposed only in 1960\u2019s. The \nminister in question was a popular guy who, introduced a secured future for all \nthe workers of the country, who are not employed by the government(Who received \nthe old age pension). The minister had to resign from his post, from the \nlegislature council and from the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We \noften hear of public servants at all levels taking bribes. But the reports or \nthe gossips never mention of people trying to give bribes. I suggest that the \npeople who offer bribes are the people who should be given harsher punishments \nthan those who take bribes. If nobody gives bribes, the public servants will \neventually will have to do their duty to general public who seek the service. I \ntrust that during the next 5 years the public service will become more efficient \nand clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissions:- \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I \ncould not trace back the origin of the commissions. All I could find was the \ndefinition of commission is what is paid to salesmen for making a sale. This is \na contract of employment where the salesman\u2019s salary is set at a low level and a \ncommission, a percentage of the value of the sale he\/she makes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I \nhave no doubt, that the origin of the big ugly dragons of commissions were not \nbrain child of Sri Lankan politicians. In my opinion, these ugly dragons are \ncreated by Multinational Giants to beat the competitors, when forwarding tenders \nfor big contracts. Irony is, now it is a well known fact, even Chinese \ncompanies(Public) offer commissions to win contracts. China who emerged to \nbecome a world power within the last 70 years under socialist system. I have no \nidea whether it was a part of Chairman Mao Zedong\u2019s plan for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ugly \nDragon <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissions \nare actually another form of massive bribes. It is a common knowledge that this \nhas been widely practices since 1977, with the open market system competition. \nIt may have been there in smaller scales prior to this. Incidentally there was a \nhumerus story(among the Mahavelly Engineers) connecting Then minister who is one \nof the most efficient ministers of Sri Lanka and an unnamed minister(Roads and \nPublic Works?) of Pakistan. I would put this gossip to a side as a story made up \nby disgruntled Engineers, who wanted to give it as a reason to leave the \ncountry. But this commissions that are included in the cost of work or services \nhas to be borne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by \nthe unborn children of the country. It is a massive lost to government coffers \nand need to be stopped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, same forces that lead the country to victory against the mighty Tigers should be able to save the country from this ugly Dragon \u2013 Commissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orpheus \nPerera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orpheus Perera Tips, Bribery and Commissions. Tips:- Tipping is something people do, to say thank you for a good service. Sometimes I give tips to waiters even if the service is not satisfactory. But advice the recipient(Normally waiters of hotels and restaurants.). I do so as a favour to the poor guys. In countries such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orpheus-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}