You ain’t seen nothing yet! Wait when 10,000 elected peoples representatives get into the act – there will be no Country left for the future~

If any of you intelligent readers wonder why we in Sri Lanka have been unable to grasp the extent of how the public are fooled – just read this ONE example of many of the hidden goings on, which you are not even made aware of in the social media, as our level of intelligence is so non-existent due to an education system that has stifled ANY kind of imagination, it is ripe for the rip off artists.

Tell me you don’t know that as soon as the Local Government Elections are over, the winners have already made deals to give people permits for filling paddy land, permits to build in questionable areas, and contracts at inflated prices for various small projects of roads or drains or whatever. So while the public funds are used, a few people including the Elected Members make a cut, not small I might add, of your money.

So in effect you are electing crooks. Nevertheless, do you think there was NO thievery while there were NO elected officials in local government in the last two years, as the Councils’ terms had expired.

THE ANSWER IS A FIRM NO. THE PUBLIC SERVANTS FILLED IT!

Why? Because this theft is carried out to a massive extent by the unelected officials, now in Government Service who have taken a pledge to protect the State. Included are the hangers on of MPs and Ministers and even the President and the PM, using the power of their office to loot the nation’s future, that is the environment, and all policies set up to protect the state from itself.

The example I wish to draw to your attention is on the filling up of Paddy Lands. We all know that it is illegal to fill up paddy lands, as they are in lower ground and used as drainage during excessive rains and to protect our farmers, and ensure we are self-sufficient in agriculture. Natural sponge wetlands too.

Despite this, mainly with the connivance of Government Servants in many Departments across the board, they have ensured that people have been given permits, to fill about 250,000 acres of paddy land  in the past 15 years, ONLY in the Western Province and now there is very little left. The demand for buildable land for shops, offices, factories and homes has been such that, rules and regulations have been flouted without any concern for the consequences.

Where is the Media in all this? Nowhere as they dare not bring this issue up, as they are silenced by the powerful and moneyed interests into total silence, that is on journalists who have common sense and sense of community spirit who wish to publicize this environmental disaster. Others are just dumb.

If you wonder how so many people are able to buy brand new Range Rovers today at Rs30M a pop, just read the rest of the story and you will know how.

You all know that land prices in the Western Province have skyrocketed to stratospheric proportions. With NO rules in Colombo, designating only small areas for high rise development, we are now seeing apartment complexes in every nook and cranny, and permission for all of them have been given due to large scale bribery, not through fair means, as Public Servants wait to be bribed before giving permission and they are acutely aware that time is money, and so often demand an apartment or two in these buildings for their signature to pass plans. This is like a bribe of Rs50M or Rs100M to them. We must stop this!

Getting back to the filling of paddy lands, I asked a person a few days ago, if I could get the permit to fill 4 acres of land about 25km from the heart of Colombo. The land is worthless as paddy land, as due to rain run-off, it is impossible to cultivate. It fills up with water because all the land at higher ground is built up and there is nowhere for the water to go except into the lower ground paddy fields. If this land is filled the land is worth a minimum of Rs250K a perch, and there are 160 perches to an acre, the minimum value of an acre would be 40Million. So I was told I will have to pay 25% of that value as the fee to obtain permission to fill and that permission is only valid for one year. So Rs10M per acre or Rs40M for the whole deal, but must be filled in one year.

To be honest I don’t mind paying the Government that money for this permission if that is legal and above board, but to pay the fixer who is part of the President’s inner circle and another fixer who is part of the Prime Minister’s inner circle, that is unconscionable. In this instance I honestly don’t believe either the President or the PM knows about it, or partakes in any largesse directly, but as these people are part of their circle, they MUST benefit indirectly in some way, even if it is for their election costs.

I then investigated how this Rs40M is divided. I can’t say exactly but the people partaking in sharing this largesse are all the people whose permission is required before the official permit to fill is obtained. Almost all Public Servants.

I thought all this was quite illegal. So how come it is permitted? The point is it is not illegal, just that different rules apply to different jurisdictions, and those rules and permission have to be complied with. It should be made illegal, surely.

One of the biggest gravy trains is under the President himself. That is the Central Environmental Authority. They are responsible for the safeguarding of the environment and their officials make hay while the sun shines by selling their rights and the nation’s future to the highest bidder. In short destroying it.

It is no secret that for the right price they will sign their mother’s death warrant, and almighty Mammon is their God as they want the Range Rover just like their boss and they see a simple way of getting it.

So this fixer gives a cut to the agent who brought the investor, who needs the permit, another cut to the CEA official, another to the Divisional Secretariat official, another to UDA official whose permission is needed for development, another to the RDA official to check that no road has to pass through that land, and so on about 6 people have to been paid off but the main man working under the auspices of the PM or President takes the Golden Share as he COORDINATES the whole process, working from the PMs or Pres Office.

SO you see how this works. The original owner of the paddy lands is fooled by being paid about twice the paddy land value for the property, which amounts to peanuts as the permission to fill, is the key to profit. With so many builders looking for land, the person who goes to do the deal may have already pre sold the land with the conditional promise of a filling permit, so he too becomes just another cog in this wheel.

Have you noticed how many Keells and Food City outlets are coming up around the Western Province? Have you seen where they are being built? And do you know the history of how that land was allowed to be built on? As far as Cargills and Keells are concerned they have a formula of how much they are willing to pay and how long they are willing to sign on to the leases of the properties etc. so they don’t care as long as the correct legal procedures are done, what the history has been. It is simply matching supply with demand and rules are bent to make it happen and many people get rich along the way.

The government does not get a red cent in all this and it is high time all this stops and either it is simply forbidden or all permission merely has a price payable to the State, who will be able to bridge the deficit from this money!