Sunday, August 30, 2015

Sri Lankan Records...............



None of Sri Lankan so far did not receive Nobel award of course India won twice both Literature and Economics. But we have notable Sri Lankans who won the Magsaysay award  Pro.Ediriweera Sarathchandra,musician W.D Amaradewaa, Rev.Father Marcelline Jayakody, Savodaya Founder A.T. Ariyaratne. The Agha Khan award Winning most influential architect of the region Deshmanya Jeffry Bawa  also we have Olympic Medal holders in athletics as well world champions in Cricket. They are all Sri Lankans.
(Savodaya Founder  Mr. A.T. Ariyaratne)Yesterday In Nuwara Eliya, Our Tea Capital served 35000 cups of Tea to people and its Guinness world record. The previous Record was belonging to India where they serve only 32000 people. This is not first world record that Sri Lanka holds. The world first Women prime minister is from our country. Somewhere in Past Sri Lanka actually it was Ceylon the number one tea exporter to the world. Due to various reason now China has become the number one and my little Pearl still maintaining the fourth place. Not too bad……..
 (there is no considerable growth of production since 1970.)
It was Late Singapore Prime  minister Lee Kuan U in book “The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew” there is a chapter about Sri Lanka he has pointed several facts where Sri Lankan Tea Industry fails at the time the Government taking over the privately owned tea estates during 
Mrs.  Bandaranayake .
But again it was Fidel Castro who really admired taking over private tea estates in the Non-Aligned Summit which happened in 1976.He did make caparison where they took over sugar industry and tobacco industry by a revolution. But Cuban Sugar Industry did not become number one in the world at any point. Brazil supplies ½ of the world sugar requirement still. Any way both Cuba and Sri Lanka Still independent Islands. At least we have something common……
(TheLotus tower  still at construction stage)
This all about Sri Lankan records. Well even our tea industry had some sort of decline there are certain things made Sri Lanka again to put in the number 1 place, but most of things are not in people friendly way. We are about to have the south Asia’s tallest tower the Chinese Gift,  the Lotus tower very soon. Well it now almost piercing s Blue sky of Colombo. Skyline of a city is an indication of the development of a country…that may be true to Qatar ,Hongkong,Dubai but In Sri Lanka it seems to be little exceptional we have still GDP per capita of 3800$,so this South Asia’s tallest  tower most probably won’t be a reason to bring this amount in a higher elevation.
(Prospective image of Sri Lanka with the Lotus tower.)

Then also we had the world record of Jumbo cabinet during former president’s time which exceeded over 60 cabinet ministers for population of 20 million people. We have 225 seats in the parliament. Not bad. Also we had a cabinet minister for Sugar. May be inspired form Cuba. Only one sugar factory is functioning in Sri Lanka.

Again we had four cabinet ministers only for education this was not to improve either education or sugar industry in Sri Lanka, only to please his friends. This is not including the deputy ministers, with all cabinet ministers and deputy minister total number of ministers exceeded over 100.
(http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-cabinet-ministers-appointed-by-a-government/)
I’m not sure is this a reason to cry or laugh but who was bearing the total cost of this minister.
In Sri Lanka both cabinet minister and deputy minister entitled with   so many facilities.750 liters of fuel for three vehicles. Per one minster only the fuel allowance is over 2000 liters per month.
Then 15 numbers of his personal staff. Most cases the minister appointed his family members to his personal staff. After five years they all entitled for government pension, here not to mention official residents and telephone bills and other utility facilities which another part of the whole package.
 Also they are entitled fir all the privileges as parliament members.monthly the whole family on foreign official tours .From previous government there were some cabinet minister they never had any official duties, but government budget allocated their maintenance cost only.
Apart from that they have their invisible hand on each and every  government projects.one of the previous government there was a cabinet minister who was known as the Mr.10%,but end of that era he became Mr. 100%.So no wonder why  our GDP won’ t reached higher level  even though there are buildings reaching to the sky.
These were well known facts during the past election all the political meeting widely accusing over this white elephant. As Sri Lanka over 6 million people thought about this and vote against the previous government. From January 2015 we got a new president.one of his political promises were limited the state cabinet for 25 numbers. But he it was a broken promise, it exceeded over 30.yet again we had some positive thinking over minimizing the numbers of the cabinet ministers. So again at the parliament election majority had hopes on the new government. Well happy to say at the moment we are holding another world record for over two weeks.that is the smallest  cabinet of the world.at the moment we have five members in the cabinet including president and prime minister

(the prime minister is not included actually there are five members.)

Sadly this in not keeping another political promise, these days newly elected parliament members are bargaining over for cabinet ministry post from new government. There are unofficial information says this time the cabinet is little less than 50.At least we can be happy it is not growing. In Sri Lanka  the reason why we do smile than  other nations in the world is we are always very optimistic.

But there is another reason as per the 19th amendment the situation such over 30 member of cabinet has to take parliamentary approval. Nothing to worry they will get it tomorrow early morning.
Actual now it has proven this is a complete white elephant and the administration body of Sri Lanka can take care of even without a large number of cabinet ministers. But we don’t have far sighted leaders; we have only politicians who think of wining the next election which will be in another 5 years.