The most disgraceful series of full page ads costing millions of rupees using STATE MONEY by the top Management of People's Bank were an attempt to hide the truth.
Read the link: and make of it what you will, and you are entitled to look at the bias of the newspaper that is reporting it and come to your own conclusions as to what you believe is MOST LIKELY
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20160701CT20161030.php?id=5318
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20160701CT20161030.php?id=5317
I don't normally trust what is written in Ceylon Today, but there is NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE, and I know that something fishy has gone on. I know in most tenders there is something fishy, and when it comes to State Assets, we the public are entitled to know what is going on.
It is NOT THE FIRST time when People's Bank has been involved in shady deals. I remember how Nayana Dehigama and his NOW prestigious Epic Lanka started out. They had a shady deal with the top management of People's Bank that helped to educate the son of a senior official involved in the Computer and Electronic Readers that were purchased through Epic. I don't know who got how much, but that is how some businesses have started and these leopards DONT change their spots, and now they have some huge deals with the Govt. and there is NO telling who got what to give them the contract. Is it them who have the national passport contract?
It is important that the Govt investigate this transaction, as it is just too high a price to be paid for this under today's technology, and misusing the word digitization in the advertising is an unforgivable crime on the part of the officials who are responsible for putting this ad.
I expect more information to come out in the social media shortly to try and out the crooks within the bank as it is a NATIONAL ASSET that is being stolen by a few unscrupulous BEGGARS in the form of top officials wanting to line their pockets and educate their children overseas!
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
High Court Judgment – Guilty of Premeditated Murder – Therefore death penalty on the Accused – RIGHT OR WRONG?
The Bharatha Laxman murder case verdict
is in, and it is NO SURPRISE TO ME.
If you followed the case closely, and
you know the law, and saw the evidence, it was a clear cut case of a bunch of armed
gangsters out to kill a person or persons for whatever personal reason they
had!
If the whole case was read by an
independent JUROR with ALL NAMES OF THE PERSON REMOVED and referred to as A, B,
C etc that is what the Jury verdict would be. However even if we went on a jury
trial in Sri Lanka, due to the fact that both parties are known people TO ALL
JURORS, personal prejudices will outweigh those of objectivity, and the verdict
COULD BE different.
I therefore, feel that even though the
majority verdict was reached by the judges, there are personal prejudices at
play here, over and above the LAW which may have affected their opinion. I am
convinced that NO tampering of justice took place on the part of the present
Government to prejudice the case, though I am sure pressure may have been on
the judges from OTHER INTERESTED parties, who are very influential in Sri
Lanka.
In the end it is sifting thorough all
the evidence and coming to a conclusion as to intent, as this was NOT A WALK in
the park that turned into violence. When the time and place are taken into
account along with the period of impunity that existed during the MR regime, it
is as clear as daylight that the accused were guilty as sin for this murder.
What is regrettable is that Mahinda
Rajapakse DID NOT permit the true course of the Law to take place in this instance,
just as he has not in other murder cases UNDER HIS WATCH, and therefore he is actually
guilty of sins of omission in this regard, and has lost his moral authority to even
opine on this issue, which no doubt he will till the COWS COME HOME as there are
enough people willing to listen to him, and the stories of how much was donated
to what cause with reminders of pictures of old women being kissed etc.
No doubt this whole episode will be politicized
AD NAUSEAM and be ridiculed as a political vendetta by those who disagree with the
verdict. That is the fault of the people’s lack of objectivity on what is right
and wrong. We now have to see what the future holds and what real punishment the
accused will get! Even here it may turn out that the law is not equal, wanna bet!
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Handing over tax collection to the private sector! RIGHT OR WRONG Why?
The Inland Revenue Service Unions are up
in arms about this proposal! See link:
According to the paper article, the
Inland Revenue Commissioner and the senior staff attended a meeting where it
was agreed to give the local agents of Baker McKenzie the task of collecting
Taxes. I don’t know what taxes, whether it is Income Tax , Corporation Tax or
VAT, but there has to be a reason for this out of the box suggestion.
It is a well known fact that the tax yield of Sri Lanka has dropped from
20% of GDP some years ago to about 14% now, and the Govt. wishes initially to
raise it to 20% so that about Rs500B of unpaid taxes can be collected.
It is also known that the staff of the
Inland Revenue just have NOT been able to collect the taxation that is due, and
either because those who should be paying taxes don’t even have a tax file, are
not being selected, or those having a tax file are in cahoots with the
Accountant of the Businessman, and both take a fee from the Businessman in
reducing his taxation liability, and so defraud the nation from its rightful
take. These are but two of the most common reasons why the taxation take is so abysmal.
No wonder then that the Govt. collects
the bulk of taxes from imports as they are easy to administer; similarly
Tobacco, and Alcohol Taxes as they are too collected at the Manufacture stage.
Telecommunication levies are also easily collected as that is ONLY from a few
companies, and VAT has been imposed on the largest companies where collection
is easy.
Instead of the 5 unions representing the
Inland Revenue Employees agitating against this privatization, they MUST
counter with a proposal of collecting the Rs500B as long as they get to share
out Rs5B amongst their staff. That is fair isn’t it? The real story is that
they are CORRUPT TO THE CORE in being bribed, who supplement their income many
times, and who have a nice life from robbery, who see their cash cow coming to
an end.
I would suggest that a new strategy is
adopted immediately. Request ALL Government departments to second two top
administrative service officers for a period of two years. Give them a basic
training in identifying potential tax payers.
Then they will be given an honorary
title like assistant commissioner general of Inland Revenue Service, and be
given a file of 10,000 people who need special attention for investigation, and
a procedure given for them as to how to tackle these very wealthy people, WHO
CURRENLTY DO NOT HAVE A TAX FILE.
So let me give you an example of how I
would tackle one person. Let us take a car dealership. I will first do some
background checks to find out who owns this. Where they bank, where he or she
lives, and asking the neighbors the period in which they have occupied the
current premises. I will also try and find out what he or she was doing 10 years
ago, to fathom if this person has started from scratch.
One reason to be armed with this
information is so that when confronted, the businessman who may have dealt with
lower level IRS employees, and been able to fob them off with a one of payment
of Rs20K, is now confronted by an assistant commissioner with a far greater
level of responsibility and standing!
This person can say that he has
knowledge of the Tax payer and that he should now have a tax file, and go
through the process. Say if he says that his stock of vehicles is worth Rs600M
and he owes the Bank Rs 100M then he has effectively earned Rs500M over a
period of 10 years starting with nothing. As he has never paid any taxes, he
can assess that he should have paid about 150M in taxes over this period, but
is willing to agree to settle an up to date tax liability of Rs 75M if paid
within 3 months, and then he will be assessed from now on a new basis as agreed
after he provides a list of the stock with him, and his transactions of the
whole year etc.
Using this type of example where the car
dealer will without question when confronted with the truth, realize it is best
to pay up Rs75M and be up to date with his taxes, if there are 1,000 senior
officers on secondment for two years, they could collect this back log say of
an average of Rs75M per person per year. The total taxation thus collected on
back taxes would be 75M X 2 X 1000 = Rs 150B
That would be a start wont it? This
brings a new pool of people onto the taxation roll, and the Staff of the Inland
Revenue Service can carry on from there, with these staff returning to their
former positions. Of course as an incentive to these SLAS staff grade 1, they
could be paid a 1% commission on what they collect.
In conclusion the Govt. should be STRONG
not to give into the threats by the IRS unions, who only care about their existence,
and not on the long term benefit of their work towards collecting the much needed
revenue for the nation.
I am truly troubled by the goings on at the Café Diyawanna Oya, sometimes referred to as the Parliament of Sri Lanka
For the sins of the Sri Lankan voters we
always select the lesser of two evils to Parliament. If truth were to be told,
once elected and the euphoria dies down, people actually hate the Govt. in
power, as the expectations are beyond the Govt.’s ability to fulfill, as was
the case at the 8th January 2015 Presidential Election, where a
Tsunami of unimaginable proportions took place and the August 17th
2015 General Elections, when an expected outcome, was combined with a wholly
incomprehensible (to the people) National Government emerged, which runs today.
Why? Because it is business as usual,
and in Sri Lankan politics NOTHING changes, with the same rogues finding their
way to the top echelons of decision making, making a killing at the expense of
the public.
Why does this happen like a broken
record each time? Simple. We have never had good governance in living memory,
and people therefore cannot understand it, and moreover, the leaders who rule
us, don’t care a toss for good governance, and ONLY pay lip service, to gain
some legitimacy in making pompous statements they have NO INTENTION OF LIVING
WITH.
It is in this backdrop, that once again
our Lords of the Diyawanna, instead of being put on a slow boat exile in CHINA,
continue to fool the people in ways that become ever more fanciful.
Just take once instance of tom foolery.
The relationship with the Government in Washington is very important. They
effectively dictate how small Countries are treated by the UN and in Sri
Lanka’s case, the Human Rights issues that we face, no matter that since 2009,
there have been numerous instances of its abuse throughout the world, and no
actions have been taken against the abusers for a whole raft of reasons.
Our Embassy in Washington, should have
then, and should be now staffed with intelligent highly competent people in addition
to the Ambassador. Previously we had a MR relative in Jaliya Wickremasuriya who
was before being appointed selling Tea to the Americans from Atlanta, and got the
posting for no particular ability of his! He was no doubt a political appointee,
and is now shown to have spent and stolen all sorts of amounts as part of his duties,
and did nothing to counter the propaganda blitzkrieg against the Govt. in Sri Lanka.
To that job were appointed highly paid lobbyists,
whose fees were not only excessive, but obviously in retrospect did not provide
the service, to expectations, nor was the contract granted to them done with transparency.
It was clearly given to shady characters, who could have shared the spoils with
the people in Colombo, responsible for granting them this task!
Now we have a Senior Foreign Service Officer
as the Ambassador, and we still appear to have incompetent staff in Washington,
clearly unable to do the lobbying within the corridors of power, and so we have
YET AGAIN using DUBIOUS RATIONALE see link: below of engaging another lobbying firm
to counter allegations of discrimination in a Country that has been sworn to have
rejected any sort of discrimination! Don’t let yourself be open to such blatant
misinformation.
Worse, the foreign office feigns any knowledge
of this contract, and it should if any department gets involved, be the foreign
office that should be hiring lobbyists to fill any shortcoming on the part of the
Govt. servants who are tasked with that very same goal.
I am NOT altogether satisfied by the journalistic
ethics on which this investigation has been carried out, as I believe it is more
personal, than questioning the need for the lobbyists in the first place. The cabinet
paper requesting the authorization to engage this questionable lobbying firm is
grossly inadequate in its explanations for the need for such a service in DC.
The Minister on the other hand has got his
knickers in a classic twist, as he has unwittingly allowed himself to be the object
of derision for his incompetence at explaining the inexplicable. Why is he acting
as an village idiot, when he should just use common sense to explain the need if
it is felt so important to engage them to fill the gap of the grossly incompetent
lack of progress on the part of the Embassy.
Truth is all it takes to right a wrong. We
must first admit that our foreign service is NOT up to snuff, due to politicization
of previous regimes. Therefore up until we train our new batch of recruits in the
art of DIPLOMACY, we have had to resort to using the service of outside firms, to
perform ABC etc. if there are other areas we for national security cannot disclose
then so be it. Please list why we need them and why we believe they can help SL
counter anti SL sentiment.
As I said in my previous post, the Media SHOULD NOT BE able to get off scott free from criticism either, as they are picking on a point in their investigation, and have NOT tried to be fair by the Minister, prior to publication, in getting a frank explanation on why this kind of Cabinet Paper was short circuited for whose benefit.
In all this the PUBLIC PAYS THE PRICE, and in an open govt. are entitled to a detailed explanation why public funds are spent. The Sunday Times, by sensationalizing has not been able to find an answer to that. They are just picking on a hapless Minister, accusing him without proof of leaching some foreign exchange for personal use, but we need more explanations.
I bet this story will now die, and NO FOLLOW UP WILL TAKE PLACE. Therein lies the rub.
It is the duty of the Media to sit back and ask themselves why they are going on this line. Just to be sensational or to be responsible journalists asking for open debate of the need to spend hard earned currency for such activity, and what real expected benefits will accrue to the payers, or PUBLIC OF SRI LANKA. I will not be satisfied until this debate is taken to its ultimate conclusion, to prove who is telling the truth, the paper or the parliamentarian, and most of all what is the truth?
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
How fair is it for the Media to criticize the seemingly underhand actions of Govt. Ministers?
The long article by Neville de Silva
reporting from London for the Sunday Times this past Sunday (link shown: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/160904/columns/media-exposes-that-irk-our-ministers-207395.html
) clearly summarizes in a nutshell, how easy it is in the opposition to support
a free press, and how in Govt. the free press you honestly believe is against
you.
In Sri Lanka the problem is that those
being criticized are a bunch of incompetent buffoons who cannot organize a
discussion between civilized people as they themselves are BEYOND THE PALE! So
when the Media pick on a juicy piece of news, 80% true, and 20% stretching it,
they seize on the 20% and try to challenge the Media, honestly believing them
to be unfairly blamed.
Politicians do not realize that they
only tell half truths, and that is NOT acceptable to the public. They even
believe these half truths, and say that the previous regime was beyond the
pale, and they did not get even an ounce of that medicine. That is ALL TRUE.
However in an age of YAHAPALANAYA all is fair when something smells a rat.
As is referred to in the article, why
did Mangala drop the whole plot of MR to hold on to power? Neville implies that
it was a canard, as he is partial to the Rajapakses. He is probably a
beneficiary of their largesse! I say it was the truth, but it now seems like a lie,
because it was NOT pursued, by the govt. to get to the bottom of the story.
My interpretation is that, a deal was struck
with the PM, NOT to go against his erstwhile foe Mahinda, for something in return.
IT IS THE MEDIA’S JOB TO UNEARTH THE TRUTH, and they patently failed. No point Neville
just saying it was all a figment of Mangala’s imagination.
When the Media then picks and chooses when
and what they want to report, they too owe it as a duty to the PUBLIC to follow
to the bitter end ALL these leads. THEY DON’T and there-in lies the fault of the
MEDIA and their credibility.
Frankly the Media is NO better than the daylight
robbers in Parliament. They are one and the same, who can be paid to do anything,
and the losers are the public to whom the fourth estate owes a duty to protect.
Until we have media we can believe in who follow through a story to the bitter end,
we cannot expect politicians to behave, as all criticism of Media itself is suspect,
due to their MOTIVES!
Is the PM deliberately deceiving the Public or is he just ignorant?
In a speech ironically in Biyagama on
Sunday, (see links below for details as reported both by the Daily News and the
Daily Mirror – therefore not heresy) the Prime Minister categorically stated
that he is planning on 50 more industrial zones.
Has anyone told him yet that there are
35,000 job vacancies in Biyagama alone? Is he going to create Zones so we can
import labor from India to work there? In Biyagama there are 50 empty closed
factories, primarily for want of workers at a price that the business can operate
profitably. Clearly as one who has NEVER run a business, the PM is talking
COCK!
Sri Lanka in a major crisis, where there
are NO people FIT AND PROPER to fill the job vacancies that currently exist.
Just because a zillion people apply for one job in the Public Sector does not
mean there are unemployed people. They just want an easy job, where there is NO
stress and they receive a paycheck for life!
Sri Lanka is the only full employment
Country in the world, where people who want to work have a huge selection to
choose from, and those who don’t can sit and wait till what they are looking
for comes around, which it may never! ALL THE GOVT MUST DO is to provide the
training, skills and MOTIVATION above all for people to fill the jobs that do
exist, and if there are NO takers then ALLOW the businesses to import labor to
do the jobs, if this economy is to grow.
Then he talks about the Govt. giving a
salary bonanza! Does he realizes that by forcing the Private Sector to give a
Rs2500 a month increase he has pauperized many companies who cannot now invest
for growth. TO repeat as someone who have never run a business he cannot relate
to it, and his staff and hangers on who have run companies don’t have the balls
to tell him a few home truths, lest they fall out of favor. Today, being in the
inner circle of the PM is the most important goal in life, NOT THE TRUTH of
about life.
Can someone with guts, please tell the Prime
Minister that he is really BARKING up the wrong tree, and for the benefit of this
Country, put his effort into, changing the mindset of the underemployed people to
take the jobs that do exist, and not wait for Govt. jobs. You need guts to tell
1,000,000 three wheel drivers they are traitors. We only need 200,000 over age 50
drivers who earn Rs150Kpm, using the UBER concept. The rest, able bodied can be
released to highly remunerative work.
Lasantha Goonewardena fmr. Lankaputhra Development Bank Chairman, a donkey who has just made an ASS of himself!
It is without doubt a clear indication
of why jobs for the boys is NOT always the right way to go, when you play with
Public Property. In a CLEAR source of embarrassment for the Prime Minister, his
longtime trusted sidekick, Lasantha, who helped nurture Green Blood and the
Colombo District Youth for the UNP, and was a LOYAL supporter of the PM during
Ranil W’s battle to hold onto the leadership, was found to be totally unfit to
be the Chairman of a Bank, one owned by the people of Sri Lanka. Hell, there
are rules that MUST be followed, basic minimum standards of integrity to be a
Bank Chairman. Lasantha just did not cut the muster! The details of why he is
unfit is in the link below.
Of course the PM who helps people who
have stood by him through thick and thin, THOUGHT this was a good position for
him, which Lasantha relished and began putting unsuitable stooges and did a MR
on the bank putting loyalists over competence! Frankly in hindsight, or even
before appointing him, should have realized that he was simply not suitable for
such a responsible job in a GOOD GOVERNANCE environment, where cronies should
have only been given honorary positions like Boot Licker etc which is common in
the UK for those who serve the Queen, as honorary bottle washer etc.
The REALITY is, he should never have accepted
this position, if he was at least a little conscious of his incompetence. Now he
has let down his BOSS badly, after his boss stood by him not asking him to leave.
Of course people of this ilk do not realize how much damage he has done to the UNP
by his behavior and effectively to the Govt. This is possibly more damage to the
party than any help he gave in bringing it to power in the first place adding to
his negative value!
What about the unprecedented ignominy of
being fired by the Board, a direct assault on the PM’s boys! Shame on you for being
such an ASS, and obviously your ignorance of this fact further reinforces your unsuitability.
I wonder how many more of these jokers there are that have to flushed out, to clean
up the mess made by bad decisions on the part of the UNP!
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