Wednesday 1st April, 2026
The JVP-NPP government continues to signal left and turn right. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake often does the diametrical opposite of what he promised to do while he was an Opposition MP, so much so that his political opponents mockingly ask whether former JVP MP Dissanayake has disappeared and the incumbent President is a doppelganger. SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam tongue in cheek lamented, at a media briefing on Monday, that the former progressive Opposition MP Dissanayake had gone missing and someone else resembling him had become President.
President Dissanayake is unashamedly defending Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, who is under a cloud, claiming that ministers cannot be sacked for what they allegedly did before being appointed to the Cabinet. But while in the Opposition, he said no politician facing allegations of wrongdoing must be elected to Parliament or any other institution, much less elevated to the Cabinet. Jayakody has also been accused of manipulating the coal procurement process in favour of an India company, which has supplied more than a dozen shipments of low-grade coal, causing a massive decrease in electricity generation at the Norochcholai power plant and a huge increase in oil-fired electricity generation as a result. This is one of the reasons for the latest electricity tariff hike.
During his presidential election campaign, Dissanayake promised that if elected President, he would ensure that nobody would be above the law. But Minister Jayakody was not arrested and remanded despite a serious charge against him that he caused a loss of about Rs. 8 million to the state through a crooked deal while serving as the procurement manager of the state-owned fertiliser company about 10 years ago. He was indicted and bailed out on the same day recently. This is in sharp contrast to the manner in which the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has acted against former Minister Johnston Fernando and his two sons; they have been arrested and held on remand for the alleged misuse of a state-owned lorry and causing a loss of about Rs. 2.5 million to the Treasury.
Dissanayake and his party urged the previous governments to uphold transparency and accountability among other things. They pressured the SLPP-UNP government to disclose the current IMF agreement. But President Dissanayake and his ministers refuse to reveal the contents of their MoUs/pacts with India and the US.
Dissanayake used to launch into tirades against India and the US while he was an Opposition MP, demanding an end to their interference with Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. He once declared in Parliament that Jaffna had become a den of Indian spies on a mission to destabilise this country. But today he is eating out of the hands of Indian and American leaders.
A powerful millers’ cartel is manipulating the rice market. Dissanayake used to thunder in Parliament, condemning previous governments for pandering to the whims and fancies of big-time rice millers. But since his election as President, he has not cared to take any action to tame the millers’ Mafia, and farmers and consumer rights groups accuse his government of going out of its way to look after the interests of the large-scale millers who are known to have huge slush funds to bankroll election campaigns.
Dissanayake and his comrades condemned the previous government for keeping fuel prices high by increasing taxes, imposing a loss-recovery levy and obtaining illegal commissions from petroleum suppliers. The JVP/NPP made a solemn pledge to do away with corruption, reduce taxes and special levies and bring fuel prices to affordable levels. But the fuel prices soared under the JVP-NPP government even before the eruption of the Iran war. It has ignored a proposal that the loss-recovery levy on fuel be converted into a special commodity tax that can be collected from the private companies engaged in fuel trade. President Dissanayake’s government has enabled supermarket chains to monetise environmental pollution, as it were, by charging customers for single-use polythene bags instead of providing them with biodegradable grocery bags free of charge, as in other countries. It has ignored a proposal by environmentalists that supermarkets, etc., be made to transfer the proceeds from the polythene tax to the Treasury so that they can be utilised for environment protection/conservation projects.
The rich are getting richer under the current dispensation, with rice millers importing Rolls-Royces and indulging in a vulgar display of their wealth while farmers are forced to pawn their agricultural equipment and consumers are complaining of high prices of rice. The JVP/NPP politicians, who came to power promising to practise austerity, are now moving about in the fuel-guzzling luxury vehicles they promised to auction at Galle Face to raise funds for education and health. What they are practising at present runs counter to the Marxist ideals they claimed to espouse while out of power.
Thus, a wag asks whether we are witnessing a transfer of consciousness, whereby some capitalists of the same ilk as J. R. Jayewardene have taken possession of the JVP bigwigs’ frames.
from The Island https://ift.tt/Jc8vZgX
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