National-list nominations as vote bait
July 20,2015 (LBO) – By far, the greatest number of professionals have been nominated as national-list MPs by the JVP.
Some see this as cause for giving this party serious consideration. But there is evidence that the JVP national list nominations are pure window dressing.
I was listening to the Propaganda Secretary of the JVP on a talk show. He was going on about the population of Sri Lanka increasing to 25 million. He was complaining that no other party was making plans to open more schools for the rapidly increasing population.
According to Sri Lanka’s leading demographer, Professor Indralal de Silva, growth will flatten out before we reach 25 million:
Source: Professor Indralal de Silva
And will there be a need for new schools to accommodate the increasing numbers entering schools?
Not according to Professor de Silva’s careful projections. Quite contrary to the JVP Propaganda Secretary, science tells us we should plan for decreasing numbers of students entering schools, not the opposite.
More attention must be paid to demographic projections.
But not to build schools for which there will be no demand. It is to address the needs of the rapidly increasing numbers of the elderly.
These are well known facts. Professor de Silva has been saying these things for years.
The 2011 Census confirmed the trends he has been projecting.
One would expect at least one of the 25 professionals nominated by the JVP to know these facts, even if the graduates who make up the majority of the JVP nominees in the districts do not.
So either the JVP does not draw on the professionals they nominated, or their professionals are ignorant. I prefer the former explanation.
The evidence suggests that the nomination of professionals by the JVP is pure theatrics.
A disciplined, cadre-based party, they do not easily accommodate outsiders. They may nominate professionals, but it will be a long time before they take their advice or put them up on talk shows to represent the party.
If so, why did they nominate these professionals?
The JVP knows it not likely to win enough votes to entitle them to one or at most two national-list MPs.
In 2010, the DNA (then made up of the JVP and General Fonseka’s party) qualified for a total of two national-list seats. Other parties have to worry about who they will actually seat in Parliament.
The JVP has the luxury of using its national-list nominations as vote bait for the unthinking.
Let us think.
Rohan Samarajiva heads LirneAsia, a regional think tank.
He was also a former telecoms regulator in Sri Lanka. To read previous columns go to LBOs main navigation panel and click on the ‘Choices’ category.
Einstein spoke of insanity as ‘going along doing the same thing and ending up getting the same same results’.
When I read the opening sentence QUOTE “To be in a state of bliss is great, when you happily chug along at your own pace” UNQUOTE.
Here in Sri Lanka we lack this sort of public challenges being made to the whole gamut of players in an organization – marketing, finance, and frequently not in operations.
The writer in all probability had this in mind without directly divulging same.
Looking closely on the graphically representation I have no doubt that it would be more than mere GREEK to around 88 – 90 percent of the individuals who should be ideally reading this.
Sad is the fact that they do not read.
Sadder is the fact that they remain to be in state of bliss in spite of receiving those mind blowing remuneration packages.
Worse, is when one realizes the clout behind the words, in their respective designations in the individual letters of appointments.
May I wind up saying that I’m targeting the HR sector specifically in mind.
Thank you Arosha Jayasundera for giving me this opportunity to comment.
Ps:
I come from different back ground of sorts.
Not the type who will log in via disqus.com to post a comment to an write up by a ‘fully fledged professional’ in the very specific niche – Quality.
I was trained to think by a ‘world class’ individual whose tag line is “We work for Results”.
With that experience I’ve turned out to be a ‘Crusader for Value-delivery’.
It is not a race any more & it is a case of every one working togather with the new IGP to make oure country a better place to live.In coming to important public positions as a senior public servent no individual really win or loose but gets a chance to serve the motherland better.Also it is the country that has to bear the effects & concequance of a good or a bad official. In this context all three contending gentlemen seems to be very able officials who could do a tremendous service to our country by working to gather & generating positive synargy for our motherland.
instead of reducing vat they are increasing it . It is nincumpoop policy, basicly the ministers are nuts. They should have sold CEB ,CPC and Sri Lankan Airlines and AIrport and ports through IPO. It will not only reduce budget defercit but also the country would be able to curtail losses. Losses of state enterprises should not be borne by people of this country.
Imposing VAT on Supply of healthcare services is unjustifiable as medical benefits are included as part of employment income and is subject to income tax as well. In effect an employee will be taxed at 31% on income received from employment. (15% VAT on medical expenses + 16 % on total employment income)
Imposing VAT on Supply of healthcare services is unjustifiable as medical benefits are included as part of employment income and is subject to income tax as well. In effect an employee will be taxed at 31% on income received from employment. (15% VAT on medical expenses + 16 % on total employment income)
Are you aware that over the last decade or so schools have had to be closed because of a lack of students. Even in Colombo 5, there are schools with only 12 students in the OL class. This sort of thing happened because no attention was paid to data and parents wanted to stuff over 50 students to a class in the so-called popular schools. Even if resources were unlimited (which they are not), it would not make any sense to build new schools. Scarce resources must to spent on the most important things.
We do need more schools for the increase in population. But after a couple of decades some of them will have to shutdown if these stats are true. Still its no harm developing schools.
Why is Sri Lanka so poorly run?
An outsiders questions. How did it become like this? Singapore seems to attract the best and the brightest to run the State like a business. SL seems to have a bloated government, that doesn’t perform and is corrupt [if only 10% of what I read is true]. How can the SL system improve? Does SL take the China model — more state control but freeing up policies and regulations + taxes, to encourage captialism – which is the real seed of growth, not the government sector. Does SL need a strong, dictatorial type of government, as it is an emerging economy – with a twist that encourage capitalism?
I would not argue with the statistics. Regarding education, I think we should focus more on quality rather than quantity. Also when I say education, i was not only referring to school education. Agree with the JVP national-list ploy. I think considerable number of Yahapalana votes (young professionals) will go in to JVP because of this. However I don’t think it would increase their MPs greatly.
The JVP is currently working on gut feelings rather than based on statistics…But they are not alone. The ruling UNP and the main opposition UPFA are on the same boat. All talk but no
work…
Do we still have a proper alternative for this popular school issue? Why these policy pundits can’t put forward an effective yet practical solution for this?
Everyone wants a popular school. But it is not possible to accommodate every one. Why can’t we restructure the whole concept of popular schools?
All schools in the country can be converted to the primary education up to O levels. Then those who passed O level will be able to get a school with high resources. So all popular schools will be converted to the advance level schools. No popular schools after that.