Recently a police big shot had a public meeting and on that occasion he emphasised that the police force had not gone to the dogs, but that dogs had come into the police force. Whichever way one may take it, his statement is correct.

I would like to relate some past incidents concerning these law enforcement officers to refresh the minds of the general public.

I walked into the police station in my area and spoke to a police officer who was recording a statement about a theft. He could not understand me as I spoke to him in English. So he directed me to the OIC. While I was talking to the OIC a lady came in a car and before the lady could spot the OIC he vanished through the side door and I was left in his room unattended.

Later the particular PC came to me and told me that the OIC avoided the lady, as he owed her house rent and wanted me to come some other time to sort out my problem.

He then told the lady that the OIC had gone to meet the SP and that he might get late to come back. So the lady went away muttering something. I heard the PC telling the others mahattaya hitiyanam tie aken allala thamai gahanne. (If the OIC was there the lady would have caught him by the tie and hammered him.)

Once my daughter’s gold chain was snatched from her neck and we lodged a complaint at the police station. The PC showed us photographs of some chain snatchers that were at the police station, and my daughter was able to identify the rogue. Then the PC said that, that particular man was living in four different places and had three ‘keeps.’ He said he would anyway go and tell the three women to ask the man to come to the police station to make a statement. These two incidents occurred about six or seven years ago.

Once a new OIC came in charge of our police station, and he wanted to develop police-public relations in the area. A meeting was called and I too had to go for the meeting. A head master of a Sinhala school who had also come for this meeting stood up and said that he had a problem with the children of his school. Everyone was listening to the teacher’s complaint eagerly.

The head master said there were two poor families in that area and the children from these families did not like to attend school as the other children cast remarks on the poor children. The reason was that the parents of these children were dealing in drugs — kassipu and kudu.

The OIC came out with an immediate solution. He said "catch the people and send them to jail." An old gentlemen got up and asked, "when the parents are sent to jail who will look after the two children — who will feed them?" The OIC was dumbfounded. After some thought he said that the matter must be referred to the Social Services and Education Departments. The matter ended there.

There were some trishaw drivers who were also present. The OIC asked them whether the parking space allocated was enough and the trishaw drivers said that the council had provided the parking spaces and there is no problem.

There was a young trishaw driver who said the police were a nuisance to them. He came out with an interesting story. He said, when the SP or ASP was to visit the police station on an inspection one of the constables rushed to the trishaw stand, took a trishaw and went to this particular drug dealer and ordered milk rice and oil cakes to be served to the SP or the ASP at the function.

Similarly the following day the policeman took a trishaw to bring the kiributh and kevun to the police station. He said the drug dealer provided the eatables free of charge ‘to get a good name’ and also carry on with his activities undisturbed.

The new OIC turned blue and left the meeting saying he had to attend another meeting, leaving a newly appointed graduate trainee to continue the meeting.

What a shame for the kakhi coat so called law enforcement officers!

Kadawatha

PBJ and the public service

I read in the newspapers that Karuna Amman in an interview with The National Post has said that all the humanitarian aid that came for the displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka was used for the purchase of arms by his former leader. He has now come out with the bold truth because he has defected from the LTTE led by Velupillai Pirapaharan.

Our President too will be in the same plight if he sacks PBJ or Mervyn. It is true that PBJ is a top public servant and has to obey the head of state. But there have been certain public officers who had the backbone to refuse to obey wrong orders because they thought carrying out such orders would be disastrous to a particular officer in service or to the whole nation.

Politicians show the carrot to the heads of departments and especially to the secretaries of ministries regarding promotions, perks, retirement benefits, overseas postings, extension of service among others. Once this bait is swallowed the senior officers have to dance to the politicians’ tunes, including that of the President.

The sale of government property at very low prices such as the Insurance Corporation, Lanka Marine Services Limited and ventures such as Mihin Air are some concrete examples.

When we learnt civics while in school, we were taught that elected politicians had a life span of five to six years and that it was the head of the department or the permanent secretary to a ministry as the chief accounting officer, who would have to take responsibility for all the irregularities that take place in the departments and agencies under his ministry, even though they were done at the behest of a member of parliament, the minister in charge or the president.

There have been instances where senior officers quit their jobs and went home honourably because they did not want to carry out wrong orders given by the minister in charge or the president.

These practices are now observed more in the breach and senior officers work hand in glove with politicians for perks and promotions.

PBJ who was faulted and fined by the Supreme Court was retained by the President disregarding the order. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand the reason.

Similarly Minister Mervyn who was rejected by the people now enjoys the privilege of allegedly assaulting people especially journalists, cutting people with razor blades, burning houses, robbing cameras and going about with his underworld thugs, but and the President does not seem to notice his behaviour.

When such acts are reported to the police, they wait till Mervyn and his henchmen ‘surrender’ to the police, instead of arresting them. But if an ordinary citizen does something wrong however minor it may be, the police will deploy several teams to apprehend him.

All this I feel is because persons unfit to hold public office are recruited to hold powerful positions by politicians with ulterior motives. The public service which was held in high esteem and considered the pride of the country has sunk to despicable levels. All this is because of dirty politics and dirty politicians.

Wattala

Rein-in those responsible for Sakvithi scam

The primary blame for the Sakvithi fiasco should rest with those who were prepared to risk their lives’ savings with an informal private institution for higher gains in spite of the frequent Central Bank newspaper advertisements giving a list of recognised financial institutions. This is inspite of almost all banks having their branches in Nugegoda.

A retired government servant had put all his eggs in one basket and had deposited Rs. 8 million which he had saved up during his period of service. Such large deposits would have been made to avoid the payment of withholding tax or income tax on the interest of deposit accounts maintained with banks and recognised financial institutions. Taxing deposit interest income had made it difficult for banks to promote the saving culture.

The blame also falls on the Central Bank for the reason that if advertisements of Sakvithi had appeared in newspapers, there would have been several senior officers of the bank who would have read the advertisements. It should have been their responsibility to ascertain the credentials of Sakvithi as a financial institution and alerted the Central Bank authorities.

Perhaps the Central Bank could have then made discreet inquiries, and taken steps with the police or the Finance Ministry to check its credentials.

Banks and other financial institutions in the area recognised by the Central Bank would have heard of Sakvithi’s financial transactions and could have cautioned the Central Bank. But most citizens prefer to avoid getting involved in others’ affairs mainly because of the reluctance to visit a police station due to the hassle involved.

Most householders do not purchase newspapers, and some purchase a newspaper for weekend reading. Gone are the days when an employed person purchased a newspaper on the way to the work place. Some are in the habit of listening to the morning TV telecast or the news roundups on radio.

Leading journalist Edwin Ariyadasa’s statement that he was conducting English classes representing Sakvithi for senior officials in the military, police and others, reveals that those government officials who made the training arrangements should have made cautious inquiries of the activities of Sakvithi and thus the training arrangement was also another of Sakvithi’s crafty designs attaching some benefit to the officers who arranged the training programme.

The Speaker of Parliament has erred in assuming that the newspapers should investigate or make inquiries about advertisements before publishing. That is a task beyond their capability. Two national English dailies had responded to the Speaker’s reaction in their editorials.

The Deputy Minister of Finance has taken cover under the excuse that the legislation in place is not adequate and that new legislation will be introduced. But ironically the very next day after the Sakvithi crash the Central Bank blacklisted six other financial institutions.

Surely with the collapse of many finance companies in the past the Finance Ministry ought to have taken some positive steps to arrest such situations especially because the same political party has governed this country for 14 years continuously.

Speaking of new legislation to arrest such scams once they have occurred is like locking the stable doors after the horse has bolted.

Kasi Silva

A deteriorating nation

Several decades ago Einstein discovered the relationship between matter and energy leading to the formula E=MC2. Great as the discovery was, it led to the production of the atom bomb. It was Bandaranaike who in 1956 discovered the formula for getting votes easily and winning elections. A comparison of the winning formula used in 2005 bears close resemblance to the formula used in 1956.

The country is in a bad situation economically. The factors required for economic development requires changes; creating the right set-up to produce competent scientific and technical personnel, as was done by Nehru in India, creating the right climate to get foreign investments, building a nation where all citizens feel equal, maintaining law and order, recognition of talent and people’s contributions to the country’s growth.

Bangalore and not Silicon Valley is considered the IT Capital. Colombo could also have reached that standard. Instead we find medical students representing the cream of our student population assaulting pressmen, ignorant of the fact that a free press is a necessary bastion of democracy. That is another illustration of the level to which this country has sunk. Imagine the cream of Lanka’s youth becoming followers of Mervyn Silva.

This is Sri Lanka today, our motherland. Today the human rights situation, the way elections are held and won, the state of the economy all point to one fact — from being a developing nation we are now a deteriorating nation. God help us.