In light of the US suspending most forms of AID to Sri Lanka until certain conditions are met

I am against all forms of aid conditional or not. Sri Lanka is a country that should be wealthy enough to run its own business with no special or conditional agreements with any other country or AID giving institution.

However we have bred a national of beggars from the bottom to the top to accept handouts for doing nothing. It therefore seems to believe that receiving funds from others is a God given right, which I dismiss as not necessary. An added problem is that the Government of Sri Lanka has engaged in many begging exercises, and accordingly depends on AID more than loans and investments on sound commercial terms to obtain funds. The begging may be from China and India as opposed to the US and Europe, but the principal remains the same.

It is therefore unfortunate that in addition to receiving AID Sri Lanka is engaged in massive borrowing in the International Markets to fund excessive and wasteful spending which will one day have to repaid to the lenders. I believe the Government is of the opinion that it is OK to commence huge development projects, as they will one day inevitably repay dividends back to the Country. I however strongly disagree with this logic as it is not like Lee of Singapore who took not a dime into his or his catchers' pockets in developing Singapore, so the money borrowed was spent extremely wisely with nothing wasted. In Sri Lanka on the other hand every road project has a cost overrun of more than half of the final cost, for a very shoddy road, due to the road construction materials themselves not up to expected and bid standards as per the bill of quantities. It is also a shame that these people who short change the country are not brought to book.

I believe therefore that such threats by US to cut off AID will do nothing to change the behaviour of the Government, which does not honestly believe that they are up to any wrongdoings. They will not change their ways one iota and instead wonder about further ways to get the backs up of the US, using Patricia Butenis, their battle axe as the easy target to engage in.

It is important that this issue of violations be tackled, and the Govt. attitude is changed immediately before we lose face in the International Arena, as I believe the reputation of the Country is greater than the individual customers who receive the AID or not. In order to preserve the Country's reputation it is important that all violations are accepted and resolved, if we are to prevent another war, as otherwise we will not even have China or Russia to back us up if the LTTE rears its ugly head,

SO LET THE PATRIOTS PREVAIL AND SOMEHOW PUNISH THE OFFENDERS WHO ARE IN GOVERNMENT SO THIS ISSUE DOES NOT GET OUT OF HAND