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| Thursday, 27 February 2003 |
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Letters | |
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Please forward your letters to editor@dailynews.lk in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
There was much publicity in the print media recently about the dangers and damage to our valuable natural resource - Water. I wonder how many read or heeded this "Warning". There was just a mild flutter from the general public when an excess chemical ingredient was noticed in the drinking water and the quick retort was to blame authorities for "negligence". But there is more danger to our natural gift than we do not give any thought to and we will have only ourselves to blame. Even our air is not much cleaner than our water. There are many factors that are causing this gradual destruction. Need we ask who is pumping raw waste liquids and acidic waste into the nearest body of water? Most of our rivers have become sewage cannals. We have treatment plants mostly outdated units and what is the guarantee that all is being treated before release into the environment. Another pollutant is the nitrogen fertilizer that is used to produce crop yields. Garment industries also can be included in this category because they have to discharge all their waste chemical water into soakage pits. Our ground water, even our wells and soil may now be containing nitrate levels above the maximum allowed for drinking water. Beaches crucial for tourism are no cleaner than our rivers, copious amounts of sewage could still be flowing into the seas. This lethal outflow could destroy our coral reefs. The frequent sea erosions could definitely be attributed to this factor. Our littering has become a national plague. We treat our land with contempt. We are an environmental careless public. Currently with our enthusiasm to build, the authorities have neglected environmental concerns. In spite of having an environmental authority we continue to pollute the air and our land. Dumping garbage near airports could cause airplane disasters with birds and storks that could collide with the planes as they fly in and out of these garbage dumps. All levels of most pollutants including carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are on the increase considering the frightening jump in automobile use over the past 20 years. Smog has almost doubled the permissable maximum. Frankly we are all to blame for this chaotic situation and something will have to be done fast to arrest this situation as the danger and damage to this valuable resource is ever increasing. The print and electronic media can do wonders to educate the lethargic general pubic at frequent intervals and tighter controls by the authorities in the use of chemicals for agricultural use will also help a great deal. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. We are not very far away from this situation if there is no action to control our carelessness and negligence. N.B. MELVILLE PERERA
Reading the news about or shall we say panic about tea exports I thought I should write to you. Telling about tea to people, who knows about tea is practically no use, so I hesitated for some time. Reading a newspaper, recently I saw two things that should be brought to your notice. One is a picture and the other is a story about one Peter White. First that picture shows, why we should learn again how to sell tea abroad. Second is what actually this tea expert had said about Sri Lankan tea in three columns?! He had been a planter in former Ceylon and now lives in England. So what? What does he know about selling our tea abroad today? Is UK is the only thing in the world? I felt that our tea will have a plunge some five years ago.I had been sending signals about that from time to time to authorities. The market for our tea was going down all the time. Who actually knows about tea in Sri Lanka? Few specialists, who taste them? Who else out of 18 million people? No one in Sri Lanka drinks tea. They drink milk with lot of sugar just coloured with a bit of tea. Who knows what type of tea is in the milk with sugar? BOP, Pekoe, Fannings, CTC, dust or what? And who cares? The people of a country that makes nearly 300 million kgs of tea do not drink it. They are not emotionally connected to it. So, how can they sell it? The amount of tea that's being drunk in Europe is enormous, not considering UK. Each country has a different attitude towards tea. Each country has different tea needs. Do the Sri Lankan authorities know how many high quality, tasty teas are available from other tea producing countries? We boast that our tea is the best, but how do we know that? Have we tasted those teas? Are they available in Sri Lanka? We don't even taste our own teas! There are still countries that will buy from us, because its Ceylon tea. Some of those countries have no other choice, either because of dictatorships or because they cannot afford the other teas, or because the other teas are not yet available in their countries. I've seen Ceylon teas that are practically junk and they kill the market. The people, who had turned away from our tea will not come back again, ever. Why Ceylon tea? What's Ceylon? A dead and gone name. Its Sri Lanka today and for last 31 years! We, the cricketing country knows about Zimbabwe, but does anyone remember Rhodesia? Tea is a commodity and it comes from the shelf in the supermarket. Who cares about whether it rained in Sri Lanka or there was an electricity failure? If we don't know about other markets, their trends, we can forget about tea in the very near future. Any slots that are taken away from our tea will not come back. It seems that Sri Lanka has about 60 desiccated coconut mills, but only few are working today, because of the price of coconuts. Will the housewife in Europe, who needs to bake a cake wait until the coconut prices in Sri Lanka go down? Will the importer wait? So, a neighbouring country will fill the slot. There are so many coconut growing countries in the world. Sri Lanka has 300 millions of tea per year and at least 70% of it is high quality. It has to be marketed. Everyday Sri Lankan TV stations shows how to do that. If we have a war situation on the sea way, and if we do not produce tea in our own country, what do we do? We stock. And if we stock, the countries that produce quality tea will not have a surplus in their warehouses. So, the reason must be something else. C. DE SILVA
Referring to the article (DN Jan 29) "Traffic Police imposed fines ", I would like to add the following. At present, I live in the US. When I was living in Colombo about 10 years ago, I had this unfortunate incident similar to Upali S. Jayasekera of Colombo 4. I was stopped for driving without the licence by Kotahena police. I was told to come to traffic division of Kotahena police the following day and collect the notice of offence (so-called thanduam kola). When I went the following day, I was told to come in 2 days as they haven't entered anything so far. I made a visit back to the police station after 2 days. What they told me was that there is no records of my offence. When I asked them why I was asked to come to the station to collect the notice, I was told that they wanted to scare me. This was an idiotic explanation. As you all may know, I cannot argue with cops there. Therefore, I specifically asked him whether this will create any problems later on and he said no. After a few weeks, I got a warrant from the traffic courts stating that I did not make the payment and have to appear in the courts. When I told my lawyer about what happened, he said not to tell the judge what happened and to plead guilty and pay the fine. The fine was a large sum. More than money, I felt like a criminal to stand in the court and go through this. I was willing to pay the fine for my mistake at the police station. As suggested, I believe it will be better and convenient to impose spot fines. If the offender doesn't have money on him/her, then the cop can go through the present way. BASKAR
Overcharging tourists or anyone else is never a good idea. This overcharging is not only in evidence in entrance fees but also in charges for water, beer, photographic film and other items. Tourism brings its own heavy burdens of costs to a poor country. Tourists must be prepared to pay a fair price to see world class sites which need to be conserved and protected. To get the balance in this equation requires effective marketing rather than the haphazard process currently in place. Obtaining a fair return of value requires effective raising of the visibility of the benefits to the user. There is a lot to be done in this regard. There is also a need to ensure that the underclass have a fair chance to see the icons of their history and heritage. To ensure that all of this works you need effective law and discipline and a system based upon fairness. Nobody can wait for another generation to put this in place. MANFRED CLAASZ
First class travel from Colombo to Bandarawela? It was reported recently that the Railway Department is contemplating to introduce a first class compartment to the Colombo-Bandarawela service. This proposal is coming at a time when the railway is in dire financial straits owing millions of rupees to the Petroleum Corporation, and saddled with other problems ranging from defective railway tracks resulting in fateful derailments during the past several months, a number of locomotive engines out of commission, labour and administrative problems causing delays and trains frequent breakdowns en-route and cancellations without notice. The deplorable state of the Maho/Galoya line on worn-out sleepers combined with the use of wooden pegs fastening tracks to sleepers instead of iron fittings was recently highlighted in the electronic media. According to the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka the tracks between Panadura and Fort, Maradana and Avissawella are in a poor state of maintenance. It was a shocking revelation in the newspapers that the engineers employed by the Department were carrying out their work far below standard thus even compromising the safety of the travelling public. The service between Bandarawela and Badulla has been suspended due to defective tracks. So the public funds are used to pay an idling staff from Heeloya to Badulla. Recently I boarded the afternoon intercity train from Colombo to Kandy. The stench emanating from the nearby toilet was unbearable that I had to report the matter to the Station Superintendent and the Head Guard. A labourer came in, threw a bucket of water and splashed some antiseptic making the resultant odour more nauseating. I had to report the matter again and get the toilet properly cleaned. Without first clearing the existing problems confronting them is the railway so fanciful to introduce a "First Class' and charge more from the public for a much vaunted service. Will this introduction turn out to be any different from the service now on offer? M. T. M. DE SILVA-
Pramuka debacle, CB not responsible The collapse of the Pramuka Bank has sent ripples through the banking industry. The allegation that the CB had failed to take necessary remedial measures in time and should have done so much earlier with prior notice, is a baseless one. In this type of instance investigations are conducted discreetly without much publicity as otherwise it would result in a run on the bank concerned. The charge that the CB has not effectively carried out its supervisory duties in this instance is equally groundless. The CB as the regulator of banking services does not supervise the day-to-day activities of the banks which is a matter for the board of directors and the managements. The CB issues guidelines and instructions for the proper functioning of these institutions and monitor their compliance. A corrupt management can always mislead the CB by submitting cooked-up figures of disguised data. So the detection of irregularities may not be that easy as is generally imagined. Rather than the CB it is the duty of the internal audit and the external auditors to examine meticulously all transactions and ensure that the management does not follow imprudent policies and practices in running the bank. As such the blame for allowing the Pramuka Bank to slip into insolvency would lie squarely with its corrupt management, internal audit and external auditors who are a reputed firm of chartered accountants. It is now revealed that the management has been following highly imprudent lending polities like lending vast amounts to cronies and indulged in unethical practices of giving commissions and gold certificates to attract deposits. Under such circumstances its collapse would have been inevitable anyway. The clamour by the depositors for the CB to make good their deposits is ridiculous to say the least. Just because Pramuka Bank was an approved institution by the CB to engage in limited banking services, it doesn't necessarily follow that the CB or the Govt is responsible for its liabilities in case of failure. When an approval is granted it is just that only, and one should not try to read various interpretations regarding same or pose side questions. If any bank is found to be remiss at a later stage action is taken as prescribed under the law. It is just what is happening now in the case of Pramuka Bank. The employees of Pramuka Bank had also been aware of the misdeeds of the management but had preferred to keep silent to safeguard their jobs apparently. Thus they too are a party responsible for this debacle and are equally blameworthy. It is suggested in certain quarters that the banking industry should come to the rescue of Pramuka and bail it out in order to save the image of banking industry. If anybody wishes to throw good money after bad, it is their business; but the Government must not throw any public money in that direction. On the other hand if rules are applied strictly and the guilty are brought to book, it would serve the industry far better than a hushed up cover or a whitewash. P. G. A. HENRY
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