Trade unions cannot grab the mandate to govern

 

Democratically elected government of the day should have the freedom and the authority to decide on policy matters and direct the country’s economic progress taking advantage of the ongoing global and regional developments. It is natural for trade unions to oppose any kind of reforms that affect their employment but they have no authority to overstep their territory by impinging on the government’s mandate to run the country.

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

 

People who have been sick of student protests and GMOA strikes over SAITM issue were forced to witness another series of trade union excesses this week at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). The sudden stoppage of work by the petroleum workers caused immense hardships to people and was about to bring the whole economic machinery to a standstill when the police and the army intervened under an essential services order and brought the situation under control.

The main demands of the trade unionists were only remotely connected to their trade, right to bargain or conditions of employment. On the contrary they were trying to impinge on the lawfully elected government’s right to govern the country by dictating them on the economic policy.

They were demanding that the Hambantota Port privatization deal be amended to keep petroleum related activities under the CPC; the proposed joint project with India to develop the hither to neglected British built oil tanks in Trincomalee be stopped and the oil tanks should be handed over to the CPC; and Sapugaskanda oil refinery be modernized with state funds under the CPC without getting the foreign private investments into it.

The CPC workers have no right to dictate to the government on this type of policy matters. As is the common knowledge, the Hambantota Port is a huge burden to the government with Rs 43 billion loss in 2015 alone and the only way to make it viable is to manage it with Chinese participation and the deal with the Chinese company will rid the country of the debt burden by transferring an equity share in lieu of the loan.

It is no secret that the Chinese funded the project because Hambantota will be an important port on their proposed Silk Route. The previous government rightly or wrongly had embarked on this project and now we have little option other than working with the Chinese. Sri Lanka which is in an economic turmoil after fighting a bitter war for several decades will not be able to undertake a project of that magnitude on her own. No other international funding sources will agree to provide financial support as they know that Sri Lanka alone has no capacity to make such a port economically viable within a reasonable time.

The oil tank farm in Trincomallee which was built by the British colonial rulers for military purposes prior to the Second World War has been neglected for a long time and has been exposed to decay. It had been constructed at a huge cost at the time and handed over to us following the departure of the Royal Navy in the late 1950s.

Most of those storage tanks are still in good condition and it is a prudent thing to put them to some good use in a way the country can receive some income. Some understanding has already been reached with India to jointly develop these tanks for oil storage and bunkering purposes which will be economically beneficial to both countries.

The third demand of the CPC unions is also equally unreasonable. The upgrading and modernization of Sapugaskanda oil refinery is an urgent need as the country is currently spending a massive amount of money to buy refined oil. However, the total project cost will exceed US$ 1.3 billion and with other priorities and repayment of existing loans becoming due, it is not possible to make such an investment. Currently there are plans to develop it with a foreign party as a public private partnership.

 All these are projects that are necessary to be completed within a reasonable time and Sri Lanka is short of funds to do so on her own strength. Then the next viable alternative is to undertake them with participation of foreign investors. These are mostly policy decisions the government has to take and hardly connected to the labour rights of those who work at the CPC. 

If tolerated, this type of actions which are totally outside the employment issues of the workers could spread into other areas as well making it impossible for a legally elected government to run this country. Some may raise issues over the manner the military took over the control of the oil installations, but that is the only way the government could bring the situation under control. Public sympathy is surely with the government and not with the unruly strikers who are determined to achieve their motives by taking the government to ransom and destroying state property.

Parallel action by GMOA

This followed a similar wave of trade union action taken by the GMOA recently disrupting the health services over the SAITM issue. That too has similarities in the sense what they were agitating for had lessor connection to the professional or employment rights of the doctors, but a policy matter as to whether private medical education should be recognized and allowed to develop in this country.

The striking doctors were not saying so directly, but were insisting that the SAITM should be nationalized which in effect meant that no private medical education institution should be recognized even in the future whatever its standards are going to be. There was a lot of ambiguity on this point which finally exposed the motives of the GMOA.

Some time ago they also opposed the introduction of the free ambulance service backed by the Indian government. Despite objections by the GMOA, the government went ahead with the project and the free ambulance service is operating quite well in the western province and is now being expanded to other areas as well. Opposing doctors would have perhaps thought that this would encourage the entry of Indian medical professionals into the country, but it has not happened that way. 

If you compare the two situations those who participated in the strikes are two groups of employees who are well looked after. Doctors are well paid and enjoy much privileges and perquisites such as right to private practice and duty free vehicles which other state workers are not entitled to. The employees of the CPC have good salaries and enjoy many other facilities such as medical benefits, bonuses and handsome overtime payments enabling even the lowest grade employees to enjoy a much better standard of living compared to other government employees.   

Both these groups together with workers in similar utilities and essential services have been able to win many demands far and above other categories of state employees because of the vital nature of their services to the daily lives of the people. Thus they have been able to take many governments to ransom in the past when it came to winning employment related demands.

However, the issue developing now is different as these trade unions with the backing of certain political groups are now moving outside the traditional areas where trade union rights are recognized and going into governmental policy issues which are remotely connected to their trades.

This issue merits adequate public attention as the country is in a critical stage where major reforms are necessary in many vital areas of the economy to take best advantage of the developing macroeconomic and investment climate in Asia and particularly the South Asian region. It is also significant that we will not be able to do this in isolation and it is necessary to work with all regional and global powers that are active participants in this transformation and in this regard China, India and Japan are important partners for Sri Lanka.

Any effort to scuttle economic reforms in these vital areas will have a significant negative impact on the future of our country and it is unfortunate that these efforts to block the economic reforms are often backed by disgruntled political forces that are hell bent on ensuring their own survival in total disregard of the economic future of the country.

Democratically elected government of the day should have the freedom and the authority to decide on policy matters and direct the country’s economic progress taking advantage of the ongoing global and regional developments. It is natural for trade unions to oppose any kind of reforms that affect their employment but they have no authority to overstep their territory by impinging on the government’s mandate to run the country.

Courtesy:

 http://www.nation.lk/epaper/sunday/2017/07/30/index.html#5/z

 

 

 

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Indo-Sri Lanka Accord - Thirty years of soul-searching — the lasting legacy of 1987

Then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene signing the historic accord in July 1987

The most significant contribution of the much-maligned Indo-Sri Lanka Accord has been the restructuring of the island nation’s postcolonial state

Jayadeva Uyangoda

Thirty years have passed, not so quietly, since President J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in July 1987. The accord’s story has become part of history in India as well as Sri Lanka. However, has Sri Lanka’s politics changed since the advent of the accord? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’

In Sri Lanka, the most important political change since 1987 has been the total military defeat and demise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The accord was one of the early attempts to bring Sri Lanka’s ethnic civil war to an end by means of a political-constitutional solution. On his part, Rajiv Gandhi thought that a political solution in Sri Lanka on India’s initiative would not only resolve the island nation’s ethnic conflict, but also ensure a role for India in shaping the political trajectories of a post-war Sri Lanka. This thinking was subtly reflected in the accord’s clauses as well as annexures.

The accord had two immediate objectives. The first was to end Sri Lanka’s ethnic war by persuading the Tamil militant groups to lay down their arms and then join the so-called political mainstream. The second was to alter the constitutional and structural framework of the Sri Lankan state and offer regional autonomy to the minority Tamil community through devolution of powers. The two objectives have been met with only partial success.

The Tamil militant groups, with the exception of the LTTE, agreed to follow the political path opened up for them. The LTTE rejected the accord, and returned to war not only with the Sri Lankan state, but also with the Indian state. Within four months of the accord’s signing, India — its sponsor — became a direct party to the war, demonstrating the utterly unforeseen twists and turns in Sri Lanka’s politics of civil war.

And the war went on and on till May 2009 when the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa achieved the seemingly impossible — a unilateral war victory by decisively defeating the LTTE. And that happened, contrary to the dominant narrative in Sri Lanka, with the support and blessings of many parties — like India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Japan, the European Union (EU) the United States (U.S.) and the UN. Amidst disbelief and euphoria, Mr. Rajapaksa claimed personal credit for achieving ‘the first success’ in the global war against terrorism. And that seems to have effectively and permanently ended the ‘political-solution’ approach to the ethnic conflict — an approach that guided the drafting of the accord in July 1987.

The second objective of the accord required a constitutional amendment. The 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution was passed by Sri Lankan Parliament in November 1987. The new law, which closely followed the Indian constitutional model of power-sharing, created a system of Provincial Councils in Sri Lanka’s nine Provinces. Though rejected by the LTTE as an inadequate solution to the Tamil national question, the 13th Amendment at least restructured, de jure, Sri Lanka’s postcolonial state, which had remained unreformable in the direction of pluralism and multiethnicity.

This, in retrospect, is the single-most significant and lasting contribution that the much-maligned pact has made to Sri Lanka’s contemporary politics. The 1987 system of devolution was created on the basis of a set of important assumptions, as clearly articulated in the text of the accord. These included: a) Sri Lanka is a multiethnic and multicultural society; (b) Tamil demand for secession is not politically tenable, though understandable; (c) regional autonomy is the best alternative both to a unitary state and separation; and (d) Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict can be best managed by political means, grounded in the acknowledgement that the ethnic minorities have legitimate political and other grievances and aspirations.

Quite interestingly, a powerful outsider had to use some coercion to convince Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese ruling class that reforming the state, reflecting these assumptions, were the key to Sri Lanka’s political unity and nation-building. And its acknowledgement, though without much conviction, is perhaps the most important positive contribution which Jayewardene made — he made many negative ones — to Sri Lanka’s politics.

So, what has happened to Sri Lanka’s Provincial Council system since November 1987? It has been a story of many twists and turns. In the merged ‘North Eastern Province’, the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), the most leftist among Tamil militant groups, formed a coalition after winning the first Provincial Council election, only to be confronted with a rigid, unsympathetic and evasive political class and bureaucracy in Colombo. The despair led the EPRLF to declare a unilateral declaration of independence and its members then retreated to India for political asylum. Provincial Councils continued in the Sinhalese-majority Provinces, seven in all, where there was no demand for devolution. Confined to these seven Provinces and caught up in a powerful ideological paradigm of a centralised unitary state, the entire system of Provincial Councils found new political reasons for their existence other than regional autonomy.

Two of them stand above others. The first is that the Councils, contrary to the original intention of the law, became institutional extensions of the Central government and the ruling party in Colombo. Second, they evolved into institutions through which political corruption and patronage politics got decentralised and democratised. Even the Northern Council, which was formed anew after the war in 2013, and run by a Chief Minister of the Tamil National Alliance, has not been able to reverse this institutional paralysis. C.V. Wigneswaran, the Chief Minister, defying his own party’s wishes, has succeeded quite well in not being able to find any imaginative breakthrough in the exercise of providing regional autonomy to the people in the North. Thus, in the Northern Province, ‘devolution’ means ‘no devolution’ and more debate on why there is ‘no devolution’.

Since July 1987, there have been significant changes in Sri Lanka’s politics. The ethnic civil war has ended, and there is no armed insurgency threatening the state. Insurgency led by the Janathā Vimukthi Peramuṇa (JVP) too was defeated as far back as in 1989. In fact, the JVP has re-invented itself as an effective parliamentary party. Authoritarian regimes have come and gone. Attempts at re-democratisation have been made and have partially succeeded. A new generation of political leadership has emerged with conflicting visions for the future of Sri Lanka.

Amidst all these changes, there is one constant. It is the resistance to reforming the state, and the state’s failure to become truly pluralistic and multiethnic. This is despite popular support for such reforms and pledges made by political leaders to win elections. Thirty years since the accord, Sri Lanka is fast losing momentum to bring constitutional reform, yet again.

The most important legacy of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord is perhaps the set of assumptions, outlined above, that guided the accord and the 13th Amendment.

Jayadeva Uyangoda recently retired as professor of political science, Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo

COURTESY: The Hindu

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Ward system in local polls: A first step towards reducing corruption

 

Ward system based on the first-past-the-post (FPP) voting will certainly do some good towards cleansing Sri Lankan politics as it is now the time for the much maligned PR system to go out. If PR system cannot be completely discarded with, at least a mixed system could be a good starting point.

By Gamini Abeywardane

There are strong signs that much postponed Local government elections are to be held at last. Both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have indicated that these elections could be held by December or January.

However, going by developments since the expiry of the term of the local government bodies, those in the opposition seem to be quite skeptical about these promises. For them it’s a case of seeing is believing and nothing short of official declaration of elections will convince them. 

Amidst protests by the Joint Opposition (JO), government postponed these elections citing the delay in delimitation of wards and electoral reforms as reasons. Meanwhile, critics mainly from the JO have been saying that the real reason for the postponement was the government’s inability to face elections due to growing unpopularity among masses. They were agitating that elections should be held under the old system without waiting for electoral reforms.

All political parties have looked at the issue in the way that is most advantageous to them.  With the current wave of problems it is natural that the governing parties will find it difficult to face any elections. Out of the two governing parties the, SLFP which is suffering from a major internal split will have the biggest difficulty when it comes to facing elections.

Most of the former members of the local bodies are with Mahinda Rajapaksa faction of the SLFP and they seem to believe that they have the biggest electoral advantage whatever political party they may contest the elections from.

Most of those former members also have the necessary financial clout to fight elections and it would definitely be in their advantage, if the elections are to be held under the existing PR system. That is the very reason they have been fighting their tooth and nail for obtaining early elections without waiting for electoral reforms.

In this background the efforts by the government to postpone these elections are quite understandable. If they wish to continue doing so it is not impossible for them to find another loophole in the electoral system to further postpone the elections.

However, in a democracy there is a limit to postponing such elections and sooner or later they have to be held and that is probably a factor that has influenced both President and Prime Minister to hint that LG elections would be held by December or January.

Meanwhile, delimitation report has already been submitted and the proposed legislation reforming the current electoral system is also before the parliament. What has been proposed is a mix of 40 percent Proportional Representation (PR) and 60 percent first-past-the-post (FPP) system. And there are also proposals to increase women’s participation up to 25 percent.

Ward system based on the first-past-the-post (FPP) voting will certainly do some good towards cleansing Sri Lankan politics as it is now the time for the much maligned PR system to go out. If PR system cannot be completely discarded with, at least a mixed system could be a good starting point.

PR system has been frowned upon and criticized by many as it has often destroyed even the unity among members of the same political party. Its inherent confrontational nature has on many occasions led to infighting, assault and even murder.

PR also has merits

Despite criticism PR also has its own merits although demerits have outweighed merits according to our own national experience. It gives value to each vote as opposed to winner-takes- all situations often found in the FPP system. That is why it is often preferred by minority groups and small political parties.

On the other hand in local elections the ward system will provide the good candidates a better chance of getting elected as election will mostly depend on one’s reputation in his or her locality. The question of throwing money and winning votes will not arise because good men with little or no money will also be able to contest and win since even house to house campaign is possible in a ward which is generally a small area.

Another negative aspect of the current system that has been often highlighted by many people is the disadvantage of not having a particular member to address the issues of a given locality because under the PR system the entire district is considered as one electorate.

 The PR system also gives corrupt candidates who are unpopular in their own locality the opportunity to win votes from the rest of the district by throwing money. Thus, the system facilitates the easy entry of undesirable elements that have no education, but enough funds to spend.

These are some of the reasons that triggered the call for reintroduction of the ward system in local government elections based on first-past-the-post voting.

While it is morally wrong and undemocratic to restrict the voting rights of the people, a government that came into power on a promise of changing the electoral system has a greater responsibility to hold elections on the modified system.

Moreover, if the intention of the government is to cleanse the electorate as promised and ensure that better quality representatives are elected to the local bodies, there should not be any intentional delay in holding elections. And if elections are to be held by the end of the year as currently speculated they should be held on a mix of PR and first-past-the-post systems.

Controlling corruption

This could be the starting point to reduce corruption which now has taken alarming proportions. The PR system makes it mandatory for anyone contesting even local elections to spend a huge sum of money for the campaign. Thus, the system encourages anyone so elected to earn money through undue means or to give political favoures to supporters who have financed the election campaign enabling them to make more money.

Increasing female representation also will indirectly help to bring down corruption as women tend to corrupt less compared to men. They are also likely to spend less for their election campaigns while their presence in the councils will also influence the men who are in majority to behave well.

While the ward system will give the people a better opportunity to eliminate those who are corrupt and unsuitable the first opportunity for selecting good men lies with the political parties that nominate them.

So, it is important to have some guidelines and a proper selection criterion when preparing nomination lists and, if the political parties are genuine about cleansing the system, they should begin the process by nominating the most suitable candidates.  ‘Code of Ethics for Nominations’ prepared and presented by PAFFREL and accepted by all political parties can provide some guidelines in this regard.

Our political leaders have to admit that if corrupt members are elected a greater part of the responsibility should go to the political parties that nominate them. The voters alone cannot fight corruption if political parties continue to nominate corrupt men as their candidates and ask the people to vote for them.

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Depoliticization: An alternative to privatization

 

Amidst recurrent protests all over the country which are almost a daily occurrence, the question arises whether it will be possible for the government to undertake these vital reforms, especially, if they are going to take the neo-liberal path of privatization

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

Along with constitutional and social reforms promised by the national unity government are all important economic reforms. They are necessary for the country to face the future successfully in the context of current global and regional developments. One important aspect of economic reforms is the need for converting the loss making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) into either profitable or some sort of manageable institutions reducing the colossal burden on the state coffers.

Amidst recurrent protests all over the country which are almost a daily occurrence, the question arises whether it will be possible for the government to undertake these vital reforms, especially, if they are going to take the neo-liberal path of privatization. Some institutions like the SriLankan Airline can be privatized without much issues but privatization in more socially sensitive areas in the current context could lead to massive protests offering much leverage to the forces which are waiting to topple this government.

In the government itself, there are divergent views on how to reform these enterprises. The UNP is generally known to be in favour of privatization while the SLFP is more cautious about privatizing the state ventures particularly those which are strategically important.

However, the SLFP in a major deviation from its traditional philosophy has emphasized the relevancy of public private partnerships. One of the resolutions adopted at its last convention said “Regarding loss making institutions, the SLFP’s position was that they should be restructured, but the government should have a majority stake when it came to public-private partnerships managing these institutions.”

A model where the state keeps a majority stake is favoured in some countries in consideration of certain social goals – such as energy security, economic development or job creation – to be as important as profit.

Poor corporate governance

In this context full privatization will be difficult especially in strategic sectors like energy, utilities, mining and infrastructure. However, SOEs in Sri Lanka have a reputation for poor corporate governance, lagging business performance and being half as efficient as their private counterparts.
The roots of the problems are many. SOEs almost always juggle multiple or even conflicting financial and social objectives, such as keeping electricity tariffs below the market price.

Finding talented people to work at SOEs is also a difficult task as the brightest and best tend to go to the private sector, where pay is often higher. Meanwhile, political appointments to managerial positions exacerbate the issue by limiting the autonomy of the SOEs.

In the face of these difficulties the best alternative will be to try and make them viable while they are under the state control. The task is really difficult because if they are to be made business oriented and viable, first of all the politicization which is the root cause of the failure of these institutions should be removed.

De-politicizing these institutions is not possible without removing the political control of these entities. The state control inevitably leads to political control which means priority is given to finding employment for those who are politically or personally connected to the politicians who are running these institutions.

Efficiency and competency which are necessary ingredients to make profit are hardly the norm in these institutions and political control thus becomes the greatest discouragement to the good and the competent employees. Meanwhile, the trade unions which are close to the politicians are also given priority over others and often they too have some say when it comes to day-to-day affairs of these institutions.

With these political priorities profit making naturally becomes the most difficult task in these entities and the idea of profit comes up only once a year when the treasury has to pump in funds to make up for the loss. To make things worse even annual reports are not prepared in time in most of these institutions even to find out what has really gone wrong.

This is definitely an indictment on the ability of the governments to run business. If you look at the past such instances are many. The bus services that were once running at profit under the private companies in the fifties became loss making entities when they were nationalized and placed under the Ceylon Transport Board. Profit making plantations became financially nonviable entities when they were taken over by the government.  Losses were so heavy, after many years the government had to restructure the plantations and give them to the private sector for management under long term leases.

Then there are other government owned businesses such as the Electricity Board, Railways, Petroleum Corporation and so on which could easily become cash cows under proper management, but which are causing huge losses under governmental control.

Even the state institutions which are not making losses are not making the type of profits that they should make.  This means that there are no adequate returns from the assets owned by these institutions when compared to the private sector.

Earning sufficient income for a growing population is a challenge for any government and the situation becomes worse when the country’s resources are not effectively utilized. That is why it is not advisable for any country to continue to own loss making entities for long. Treasury absorption of the losses means indirectly passing the burden on to the people and this unfortunately is not understood by the majority of them.

Public private partnership is a fine idea. But no private investor will buy a stake in a loss making entity, so the way to do it would be first to initiate the process of restructuring such institutions. But, unfortunately restructuring is often misunderstood as a first step towards privatization and therefore heavily resisted by the workers.

Temasek model

One way out would be to find a mechanism to depoliticize the management of these loss making institutions while they remain as state entities. A number of such enterprises have already been placed under the Ministry of Public Enterprises Development and it has also been reported that the government had looked at the possibility of forming a government investment company modeled on Singapore’s Temasek Holdings to manage state owned enterprises.  

In 1974, the Singapore government established Temasek Holdings to own and manage state-owned enterprises and 36 companies directly managed by the government were placed under its control. Today, Temasek is one of the largest SOEs which is quite similar to a private corporation.

Temasek is registered under the Companies Act and therefore is subject to all requirements applicable to private businesses. It behaves like an active investor guided by a strategy to maximize long-term returns. It should be noted that the government refrains from interfering in Temasek’s business decisions.

The state-owned enterprises under Temasek operate fully as for-profit commercial entities, on the same lines as private sector companies. They do not receive any subsidies or preferential treatment from the government.

The success of Temasek model has also inspired Chinese leaders who also had the problem of loss making state enterprises. Simply privatizing these entities remains out of the question for China’s leaders. But, there were alternatives, and Singapore provided one and over the years China has achieved tremendous success in reforming their SOEs.

A model that has been well tested in Singapore and successfully adopted in China cannot be bad for Sri Lanka. In a situation where privatizing is difficult the best alternative for Sri Lanka would be to adopt this model in a suitable way first and to go for public private partnerships when the SOEs are developed enough to attract private sector partners.

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Hurdles on new Constitution: Referendum the best way out

 

The idea of having a referendum on a new Constitution has been much favoured by almost all the stakeholders. At the initial stages some argued that a mere two thirds majority in the parliament was sufficient for the promulgation of a new Constitution while others insisted that a referendum was a must

By Gamini Abeywardane

Adoption of a new Constitution acceptable to all communities which will also resolve the northern issue, one of the main electoral promises of the Yahapalana government has now come across a new stumbling block. The chief monks of the three Nikayas have unanimously decided that there is no need for a new Constitution.

The need for a new Constitution arose primarily because there is general consensus among the political parties that the current executive presidential system has failed to resolve major issues in the country. The need for furtherance of democracy became obvious after changing a much entrenched and almost authoritarian regime in 2015 while justice to the minority communities and resolution of the ethnic conflict are also expected through a new Constitution.

Anti-democratic and authoritarian trends that were visible during J R Jayewardene and R Premadasa regimes created much dislike for the system among the people preparing the ground for Chandrika Kumaratunga to make an electoral promise in 1994 to abolish the executive presidency. However, the promise was never kept during her presidency due to various reasons.

Thereafter, Mahinda Rajapaksa too made a similar electoral promise in 2005, but instead of abolishing the executive presidency he replaced the 17^th amendment with the 18^th amendment which gave him almost authoritarian powers. These developments led to a stronger call for abolition of the executive presidency and it became one of the main electoral promises of the United National Front (UNF) in 2015.

Soon after the new government came into power the nineteenth amendment was prepared and passed in a hurry mainly with the idea of facilitating the functioning of the unity government consisting of the two main political parties. Drafting of an entirely a new Constitution resolving the ethnic issue and changing the electoral system was postponed with the idea of coming up with a proper document after necessary consultations with political parties, professionals, intellectuals and a broader section of the population.

Meantime, developing a new Constitution was expected to happen along with the national reconciliation programme launched by the new government as the Constitution also has a major role in bringing about reconciliation among communities. The process to make a new Constitution was launched in this background and six reports were compiled covering different aspects of the Constitution at the end of public consultations which took several months.

Those proposals are now before the Steering Committee of the parliament responsible for drafting a new Constitution. Based on these documents a final draft has to be prepared for parliament to debate and discuss. Even such a document will be only a base document for making of a new Constitution and thus there is a long way for the process to go.

During this process various ideas have come up for discussion and the proposal for having a secular Constitution like in India is one of them. Some may hate the idea, but in a liberal discussion there cannot be taboo topics. These are ideas which have to be tolerated in a democratic society and there is a vast difference between discussing something and implementing it.

It’s only a proposal and both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have made it clear that the foremost place given to Buddhism under the present constitution would not be changed and therefore there is no reason to panic over it. Similarly, it has been made abundantly clear that the unitary nature of the Constitution would not be changed despite substantial devolution of power to the provinces.

Thus, it is both premature and irrelevant for anyone to oppose the idea of a new Constitution because it will affect the status of Buddhism or the unitary nature of the state. Thus, the position taken by the prelates of the three Nikayas, it appears, is based on inadequate information and it is not correct to pass a final judgment on a future Constitution without knowing what it is going to be.

Whenever the subject of devolution was taken up for discussion it has been natural for some sections of the society to oppose it. However, the electoral promises given by the current unity government should be viewed differently as they were supported by all the political parties including the JVP and the civil society groups that came together to defeat the Mahinda Rajapaksa government.

Referendum

While the political spectrum is full of disagreements over the provisions and the nature of a future Constitution, now the very idea of drafting a new Constitution itself has been opposed by the Buddhist monks of the three nikayas making it even more difficult for the constitutional process to go forward. The best solution to this problem would be to get the approval of the people at a referendum before promulgating a new Constitution.

The idea of having a referendum on a new Constitution has been much favoured by almost all the stakeholders. At the initial stages some argued that a mere two thirds majority in the parliament was sufficient for the promulgation of a new Constitution while others insisted that a referendum was a must.

Initially it was none other than the Leader of the Opposition and TNA leader R Samapanthan who strongly backed the idea of an islandwide referendum. He said the sovereignty is vested with the people and hence it was essential to get the people’s support. He elaborated his position by saying “There can be a new Constitution for the country only if it is approved by the people of the country.”

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also endorsed this saying that the leader of the TNA accepted that the support of the majority community was essential to enact a new Constitution.  Across the board there had been general agreement among parties represented in parliament that a referendum was necessary.

However, some sections of the SLFP who are part of the government have opposed the idea on the ground it is risky to go for a referendum at this stage and it is sensible to think of only the amendments that would not require the approval of people at a referendum. Some have expressed doubts as to whether it is a genuine position or a lame excuse to continue with the current form of executive presidency.

The provision for referenda which was introduced for the first time in our country by the 1978 Constitution is believed to be an enhancement on the degree of democracy that existed up to that time. In a representative democracy elected members legislate on behalf of the people. However when it comes to a matter of utmost national importance a referendum enables the people to get involved directly and approve or disapprove it.

Following the statement made by the prelates of the three nikayas the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has once again urged the Government to go for a referendum and place the issue of the new Constitution before the people. TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran, who came up with this suggestion in Parliament, said the Government should go for a referendum and place before the people, its proposals for the new Constitution so that they could voice their opinion.

Both Sampanthan and Sumanthiran are right in favouring the idea of a referendum because even if everything is agreed upon in parliament some parties are likely to challenge the constitutional bill in the Supreme Court on the basis that it is not possible to amend or replace some of the sections of the current Constitution without a referendum. A court ruling in favour of such a petition would be a definite disadvantage for the proponents of such a Constitution.

The country has already tested two homemade Constitutions, but none of them has succeeded in resolving the vexed national issue. Both these documents were drafted to suit the needs of the governments at the time, hurriedly passed in parliament and therefore lacked adequate public discussion or general approbation of the people.

This is going to be independent Sri Lanka’s fourth Constitution and now it is time for the country to agree on a permanent document.  Sufficient public discussion and extensive involvement of all political parties in Parliament are a sine qua non if we are to come up with the right document. 

A referendum will be the best way to ensure such public debate and discussion while any piece of legislation directly approved by the people in that manner will have the legitimacy that is needed to create some sense of permanency for such a document in the minds of the people.

With ample support from the minorities and the international community this government got the biggest ever mandate to draft a new Constitution and it would be anti-democratic to abandon it at the behest of various groups that have never backed a positive change in the past. The idea of a new Constitution should be abandoned only if people reject it at a referendum and not because some groups oppose it.

 

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Private medical education, the core issue and not SAITM

 

As it is, there seem to be no agreement over this issue while at the very centre is the concept of private medical education in the country, although the GMOA is expressly not saying so. When observing these developments the fundamental question that would arise in the mind of any reasonable man is whether the GMOA and the medical students are opposing SAITM or the very idea of private medical education.

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

The SAITM issue has come to the forefront of the political debate again pushing many other issues to a side. While the student groups and the GMOA who have been fighting against the SAITM have asked for its complete abolition and nationalization of the Neville Fernando Hospital, the government maintains that it would not nationalize the hospital, but take over it and run along the lines of Sri Jayawardenapura Hospital. Meanwhile, arrangements are under way to gazette the minimum standards for private medical education in the country.

As it is, there seem to be no agreement over this issue while at the very centre is the concept of private medical education in the country, although the GMOA is expressly not saying so. When observing these developments the fundamental question that would arise in the mind of any reasonable man is whether the GMOA and the medical students are opposing SAITM or the very idea of private medical education.

Private medical education is quite an accepted thing everywhere in the world. Some of the best medical schools in the world are private institutions, but governments in respective countries monitor them with strict standards. Therefore, what is needed here too is a proper monitoring regime for higher education with strict standards for medical education. Such high standards should apply to all higher education institutions in the country, be they private or state controlled.

It is a well-known fact that standards are different even among the state universities. The critics say that the standards in some of the medical faculties that have been started later are lower when compared to the pioneering ones like Colombo and Peradeniya universities. Therefore, a stringent system of uniform standards will help to upgrade the general standards in all such medical faculties.

Private sector higher education is quite popular and has a growing demand in the country.  Currently, they have degree programmes practically in every field including all branches of engineering; law and allied medical sciences and often they are affiliated to reputed foreign universities. Most of the products of these institutions have ready employment opportunities while a large number of them go for higher education abroad finally migrating to more developed countries.

Nobody has questioned the quality or standards of the degrees awarded by these institutions while these graduates seem to have better employment prospects even locally when compared to some of the products of our state universities because of their better knowledge of English, IT, exposure and work attitudes.

Despite extensive growth of private sector higher education during the last several decades we have been struggling to launch even one proper private medical school in our country. Every attempt to do so has been scuttled by the GMOA and the medical students on grounds of poor standards. If the standards are poor they can be improved as the country has enough facilities and infrastructure to do so.

Another ground for opposition has been the entry qualifications and the admission criteria. The minimum qualification for university education is technically three ordinary passes at the GCE (AL) examination and it is difficult to raise it for medical education. The reason is there is quite a number of our students who gain entry into medical faculties abroad with such minimum qualifications and come back after graduation and enter the medical profession here through the ERPM (Formerly ACT 16) examination.

Some of those doctors have become brilliant professionals and occupy some of the important positions in our health system. That shows the quality of the final product cannot be determined only by the entry qualifications. With proper opportunities and determination anyone can progress later in life and that probably is a fundamental right that should not be violated.

International schools

The increasing presence of international schools in the country also provides a strong case for private medical education in the country. It is no secret that there are several hundreds of international schools and the number is growing fast because of the huge demand for English education. These schools have become a part of the national education system and it is unreasonable to continue to deny them opportunities for higher education in medicine.

The demand for international schools grew over the last three decades because the state through its network of schools have failed to provide the country with readily employable school leavers with proper skills such as English language, IT and other aptitudes which are vital in the modern environment. The opportunities in some of the well run government and denominational schools in the cities where these skills are imparted are not available to those who are not connected to those school networks and the international schools were the natural answer to the problem.

Now there are international schools in every province and unlike in the past those who attend these schools are not from the elite families. Therefore, the government has the responsibility to give them equal opportunities and the habit of treating them as aliens who should go for higher education abroad eventually settling down in a foreign land should stop.

Then there are brilliant students from the urban schools who fail to gain entry into state medical faculties even after obtaining high grades at the GCE (AL) exam because they are behind the required marks by a few points while their peers from the rural areas get in with much lower grades because of the system of standardization currently in force.

All hopes of such students to enter the medical profession are dashed despite many years of hard work unless their parents have enough money to send them abroad for such higher education. Despite hardships many parents do that sometimes by raising the necessary funds through sale of valuable family assets and the total amount of money the country loses annually for foreign medical education is a colossal sum.   

This category would include sons and daughters of some of the eminent medical specialists who are based in Colombo or in other big cities. Some of them may be from rural beginnings, but their professional advancement requires them to live in a city and send their children to popular schools closer to where they live. And many of those children like to follow the footsteps of their parents and dream of entering medical profession, but it’s not easy to enter a state medical faculty from a Colombo school.

Fear of competition

It is understandable that medical students fear that entry of private medical school graduates could become a threat to their comfortable future. Currently they get free education at the expense of the people of this country and are sure of a placement in a government hospital once they pass out as doctors. Naturally they will not like competition from any new sources either in the government hospitals or in private practice.

There are many aspects to this issue and right to private higher education is something that needs to be recognized and when it comes to medical education there has to be stringent quality standards and the state has a huge role in supervising it. The answer to the current problem lies not in abolishing private medical education, but in upgrading its standards with adequate involvement of the state and the medical council.

The first medical school in the country was started by the British as far back as 1870 in Colombo and our medical profession owes its origin to British medical schools particularly the universities of London and Oxford. Good many of doctors still go to the UK for their training and their qualifications are still highly revered among the medical profession. That is one side of the story, yet even if one of those reputed British universities want to come and set up a medical faculty here there bound to be massive opposition in the current situation.

 The GMOA, particularly the senior consultants in it, should look at this issue impartially and try to mete out justice to all. The future dignity of the profession will depend on the manner they handle this issue and they should not leave room for the ordinary man to think that their actions are motivated by factors such as professional jealousy and protectionism.

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