Every citizen of this island, whether he or she is living in the North, South, East, West or in the Central parts of the country are equal and have to be treated equally before the law. And this right is guaranteed by the Constitution.

One section of the citizens of this country cannot be subjected to discriminatory Government taxes or levies, either directly or indirectly, while others escape from bearing such financial costs just because they are privileged to be living in a particular area, whereas those who are not, have to be subjected to such costs due to a threat perception emanating from those areas in which they live, of which they have no control.

Such unfair charges are against the principles of natural justice
But this apparently is what the citizens of Jaffna have to bear.

As reported in the lead story in the business pages of this newspaper in its last week’s edition, each container truck of goods being transported to Jaffna from Colombo is allegedly subjected to a levy of Rs. 80,000 by the Defence Ministry.

This levy may be charged to recover the army’s cost of checking and escorting those container trucks safely to their destinations in the peninsula.

Those taxes are charged on transportation done on the A9 highway that links Jaffna with the rest of the country. This road, for security reasons, is not yet fully open for the free flow of traffic, despite the war against terrorism having had been won six months ago.
The truckers to Jaffna who are subject to those levies pass on those charges to the Jaffna shopkeepers, who in turn pass on those costs to the Jaffna consumer.

That’s how the laws of commerce operate, with the consumer, in this situation the Jaffna citizen, ending up as the ultimate loser, because of the cost of those charges being finally passed down on to him.

One of the alleged results of such levies is that the Jaffna consumer has to pay Rs. 100 for a kilo of rice, the staple food of this country.

In Colombo, discounting the various types of exotic rice on offer, the usual rice that is consumed by the public, i.e. the ordinary Samba is not priced at more than Rs. 70 a kg., while there are other varieties of rice that could be got at a cheaper price.

Probably knowing that such charges levied on goods transport to Jaffna would be finally passed on to the consumer, it is not ethics for a government or a government agency to levy such a charge (whatever may be the amount) because of the discriminatory nature and effects of such charges.

For instance a lorry transporting rice from either the East, South or from the North Central Province, to the Western Province of this country, even if subjected to security checks en route, does not find the cost of such checks passed on to the lorry owner.
Those costs are absorbed by the Government and not passed on.

Therefore the consumer in the Western Province, or for that matter any citizen of this island living south of the Wanni,  is not subjected to such discriminatory levies being passed on to the items he or she procures, because of the absence of such charges.
Why then is the Jaffna citizen discriminated?

While the transport of goods to one geographical area of the island is free of such charges, to the other it is not, making the unfair nature of this charge obvious.

It’s the duty of a government to make the lives of its citizens pleasanter, easier, happier and contended, but such discriminatory charges do not help at least one section of the populace of this country to enjoy the fruits of such benefits, on the contrary it makes them bitter and poorer.

In as much as a state keeping a part of its citizens interned is bad, so is the imposition of discriminatory levies.

Even when parts of the Wanni were under L.T.T.E. control, and when the Government used to move in food lorries to those areas to feed the populace who were living in those terrorist controlled environs then, no levy, as being part of the recovery of security costs were charged, when the threat of a terrorist attack was stronger than now.
Why then is such a charge made, especially when the whole island is now under Colombo’s writ?

That isn’t to say that the imposition of such levies is justified even if certain parts of the country were still under terrorist control.  No peace loving citizen of this country, wherever they may be living, can be held accountable for, or for the threat of terrorism, and even made to pay for at least part of those costs, as such an action is bad in law.
The Government understood this principle then, why cannot it understand it now?