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Tuesday, 20 January 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
‘Palanaya’ has replaced ‘Chinthanaya’
The ‘Palanaya’ of Maithri has replaced the ‘Chinthanaya’ of Mahinda. The concrete has replaced the abstract.
Positive measurable results are crucial in building a solid constituency to underpin an ambitious movement to change a political culture of a nation whose self-serving bias in political decision making is legendary.
This writer is already on record that the former President still commands a huge constituency of the benighted. Many have asked why the term ‘benighted’ was used to describe the constituency of the former President. The term contextualises our fellow citizens who endorsed the earlier regime. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as a state of intellectual or moral ignorance.
Clearly, we have not advanced much from the times when Lee Kuan Yew described our elections as an ‘auction of non-existing resources’. Therefore the ‘reformers’ must be ready to contend with opposition to change. A good friend who belongs to the category of the benighted described the new order after the formation of the cabinet as a ‘circus’. Another doctrinaire disciple of President Rajapaksa [and of President Premadasa] dampens my enthusiasm and wobbles my hopes with a cryptic warning ‘just wait for the backlash’.
It is the good fortune of our nation that President Maithripala is not suffering from a Messiah complex. Messiahs undertake a lifetime role of ‘shepherd’. Our new President has clearly and determinedly decided on a timeframe in which he hopes that our nation will complete its journey of self-discovery.
Therein lies the danger. Saints don’t make political transformations or revolutions. Mandela had a head, a heart and a purpose. He achieved his purpose using his head. He relied on his heart to leave behind an enduring legacy. He served one term as President.
President Maithripala Sirisena must move fast to neuter the sceptics who think that he is presiding over a ‘circus’. He must give the people a circus. They need one. Some convincing, startling, credible exposures are urgently needed to appease the militant supporters who not only voted but risked life and limb to bring about change.
In contrast, this writer has chosen to be brave after the fact. He is abandoning his once cautious circumspection in the hope that the gains will not be reversed.
The Cabinet
The composition and the size of the Cabinet inducted shows that appeasing vanity has received equal emphasis as that of the targets to be met in 100 days. Robespierre was a gentle soul until the Jacobins proved their absolute incompetence in resolving the contradictions of their own 
revolutionary program.
This writer intends no mischief. Selective amnesia should not deter the Sirisena Presidency. This writer identifies Mangala Samaraweera as a detached, defiant political mind equipped to identify common denominators of all autocracies rising above partisan interests.
Populist autocrats are not villains. They are narcissistic leaders discovered reluctantly by their predecessors or thrust in office by vagaries of history.
A substantial segment of our people remain mesmerised with the mono-myth of the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’. There is also a considerable constituency that believes that President Premadasa was the ‘Pharaoh’ whose promise of delivering the wretched from poverty was interrupted. Pharaohs by nature were intolerant of dissent but condescending to the populace. To condemn one and to absolve the other of autocratic governance is to leave malignant cells of dynastic politics unattended after the most trying surgery.
Autocracies are celebrated as shining examples of electoral democracy by a vociferous minority. It promises democratic socialism that provides jobs and houses. Healthcare and Education offered are qualitatively questionable and quantitatively ignored. Autocracies don’t permit checks and balances. They hinder the pace of progress by its cult of personality that encourages unbelievable waste, clientelism and corruption.
It is then convenient for political adversaries to parry accusations with the refrain why and how the other side committed the same offence when in office. As long as this nation fails to recognise that those offences are not permitted in a real democracy, we would be whistling against the wind of resistance and trapped in the darkness of expediency.
A credible reformist movement has to confront its opposition with credible demonstrations of retributive justice meted out fast. Credible measures adopted to curb and punish predatory exploitation of public sector commercial enterprises would mark a commendable beginning.
The new State Minister in charge of Aviation has promised to facilitate the Maha Sangha to travel by air to the land of the Buddha in the first 100 days. It is extremely doubtful that either Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero or Venerable Athuraliye Rathana Thero would consider it a priority in the first 100 days.
The National Carrier
The National Carrier was formed by the first Executive President J.R. Jayewardene after a presidential commission determined that the malaise of Air Ceylon was terminal and beyond repair.
The genesis of the new airline Air Lanka has been narrated by a proven performer in the business of good governance. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in the first volume of his memoirs ‘From the third world to the first’ writes about President J.R. Jayewardene and his plans for a national airline.
“He had some weaknesses. He wanted to start an airline because he believed it was a symbol of progress. Singapore Airlines employed a good Sri Lankan pilot. Would I release him? Of course, but how could an airline pilot run an airline? He wanted Singapore Airlines to help. We did. I advised him that an airline should not be his priority, because it required too many talented and good administrators to get an airline off the ground when he needed them for irrigation, agriculture, housing, industrial promotion and so many other projects. An airline was a glamour project, not of great value for developing Sri Lanka. But he insisted. So we helped him launch it in six months, seconding 80 of Singapore Airlines staff for periods from three months to two years, helping them through our worldwide sales representation, setting up overseas offices, training staff, developing training centres and so on. But there was no sound top management. When the pilot, now chairman of the new airline, decided to buy two second hand aircraft against our advice, we decided to withdraw. Faced with a fivefold expansion of capacity, negative cash flow, lack of trained staff, unreliable services and insufficient passengers, it was bound to fail. And it did.”
[Before proceeding further, the writer must place on record that the airline pilot chairman recruited this writer to be the first country manager in Japan when the airline commenced operations to Tokyo.]
A national disaster
The point at issue today is not whether President Jayewardene was right or wrong to pick an airline pilot to head the fledgling airline. What is needed is to decide the economic common sense of subsidising an airline that has recorded colossal loses consistently except perhaps for one year under the management of a billionaire chairman who declared a profit and paid the employees a bonus. Perhaps he really has the touch of Midas or Madison Avenue genius in public relations.
Political interference and an abysmally incompetent management from inception to the present day coupled with the notion that the exchequer has an obligation to bailout the National Carrier has made the airline a national disaster immune to criticism and scrutiny. Under the executive presidency it has been the turf of a son-in-law of one president and the brother-in-law of another. Exotic pedigreed pups were airlifted under a previous presidency as well. Therein lies a tale.
This writer would urge the dynamic young Minister of State to immediately set up a Presidential Commission to determine whether the Government has any business to remain in the airline business. It may take longer than 100 days. Yet the exercise would then yield adequate data to decide whether subsidising the air travel of visitors to fill five-star hotel rooms built under tax holidays make sense to Eran the banker and Harsha the economist
Just as in 1977 the Government should not hesitate to determine if the malaise is terminal and if so to disconnect the ventilator.
In contrast to 1977 this Government need not opt for glamour projects or national emblems. There is a ready supply of public money in capital markets and with institutional investors to underwrite the cost and the risk of operating a commercial airline under a government that inspires investor confidence.
Painting the National Flag on aircraft that we don’t have to pay for is a better option than operating under losses and paying unconscionable commissions to cronies appointed as General Sales Agents. Sales agents are not a new phenomenon. But the entire network from London to Tokyo given over to chosen sales agents is definitely a new strategy.
(The writer is a former journalist and a retired professional in leisure and aviation industries.)
