• Outstanding E.P.F. dues

• 'Committee to protect Ananda College - for the benefit of whom?'

• Archaic law prevents rabies eradication

• Bouquet to S.L.B.C.

Outstanding E.P.F. dues

Noted in the recent media reports of exhortations and protestations of Labour Minister (as his predecessors did) about errant employers (not all) making use of all forms subterfuges in holding back employees' EPF deductions that should lawfully belong to the Fund. Over 45 years of operation of the Fund, has left staggering millions worth of EPF dues in the hands of unscrupulous employers rolling such withheld funds to meet their everyday liquidity problem. Rules made 45 years ago are obsolete and not adequate to recover these arrears, accrued during post open-economy period where private sector had the sway even to flout the law in gay abandon. If new rules are made, within months, interested employers will circumvent them with inside support of the bureaucracy.

What is the solution left?

To prevent smuggling and crime, Customs and Police Depts. were the early Depts. from Colonial times, rewarded for spot detections. This ancient practice was gradually extended to other revenue earning Depts, like Inland Revenue, Excise, Motor Traffic, Immigration and other forms of incentive schemes are now in operation in Registrar Generals, and 1/3 extra remuneration is paid for staffs of Parliament, President's, Prime Minister's etc. EPF is another money earning source for everyday running of the government.

As one who was among the first batch of 19 officers specially hand-picked by late Minister T.B. Illangaratne to inaugurate the EPF office from Fort BSSI Bldg in 1959, I can recall the Treasury making frantic calls to find out day's collections to get over its liquidity problem. In short, the Fund was another revenue earning spring, farsighted Minister T.B.I. introduced with dual benefits both for labour as well as government of the day to tideover liquidity problem.

Penalties recovered from EPF defaulters range from 5% to 50% amount to a tangible sum. It is suggested that an incentive scheme be introduced utilising Penalty Fund, to activate otherwise lethargic disinterested Labour Dept. workforce administering the Fund, who will no doubt persistently pursue defaulting errant employers like hunting dogs engaged in Fox hunting. With my long experience in the Dept. this would be the only way to round up the millions withheld in not-so-sure outside hands and accrued to the Fund's coffers. In the absence of such an incentive scheme to the Labour Dept. employees, employers with axe to grind, are throwing sops to get their bidding done.

I am an innocent victim of such a dishonest employer deprived me of my legitimate EPF Award yet, even after 7 years of my leaving a re-employed job in the private sector. Over to Ministry of Labour, if the above means anything sensible to Labour Dept. bureaucratic gentry!

W. SAMARANAYAKA-
Maharagama

'Committee to protect Ananda College - for the benefit of whom?'

I refer to the letter (DN April 28, 2005) under the above caption. In this letter, reference had been made to the 70/75 Group of Ananda College OBA, which I presume the writer is referring to the Old Anandians 70-75 Group which is an affiliated group of the Ananda College Old Boys Association.

At the outset, as the incumbent president of the group, I wish to inform that our group has membership of nearly 400 and is a very active affiliated group of the main OBA. Sithendra Senaratne was the founder president of the group which was established in 1988.

The writer is accurate in his reference to the period Mr. Senaratne functioned as the president of the group for 14 years which he was elected unanimously on each and every consecutive year. During this period, under his leadership, our group, which was started as a group of 12 members, grew to the present strength. His yeoman service to his alma mater was duly recognised by all Old Anandians when he was duly elected as the president of the Ananda College Old Boys Association in 2002, which position he held for two years with great success and relinquished in 2005 as per the provisions of the constitution of the OBA.

I consider it an unjust to our group in general and Mr. Senaratne in particular, if at least the basic facts about both the group and its founder president Mr. Senaratne are not properly mentioned when reference is made. My attempt here is not to present elaborate account of activities the group or Mr. Senaratne as president have done to the college but to give the readers a true and accurate basic facts, which I hope will help them make their judgement of the facts mentioned by the writer of the said article.

M.C. WICKRAMASEKARA - President -
Old Anandians, 70-75 Group, Colombo 10

Archaic law prevents rabies eradication

Rabies control authorities, whether of the Local Government bodies or the Ministry of Health are acting in accordance with a piece of legislation that is now over a hundred years. At the time of its introduction in 1893 the principal solution available to the colonial rulers for combating rabies was the ruthless elimination of dogs. There was at the time a large and rapidly increasing dog population and a high incidence of rabies that was totally uncontrolled, in the country. The whole purpose of the Rabies Ordinance, in the absence of mass vaccination of dogs, was to empower rabies control officers and the police to kill dogs found roaming or those suspected to be rabid or having come into contact with a rabid animal.

Notwithstanding the threat of this dreaded disease being transmitted to them through dogs, this law came to be despised by the people who, because of their Buddhist culture, showed a high tolerance of animals and a dislike for killing them. Even today the dog elimination programmes of the local government bodies are largely disliked and not supported by people.

It is regrettable that today, nearly 60 years after colonial rule, the Rabies Ordinance of 1893 should still be in operation despite the tremendous progress made with regard to the anti rabies vaccine (ARV) made available at a low cost to developing countries. The continuance of this draconian law has led to the brutalizing of officials of the rabies control authorities and their staff towards dogs and dog owners, while still upholding the killing of dogs as the principal measure of controlling rabies. So ruthless is this law, not only against dogs but humans as well, that it impinges even on human rights and should draw the attention of the human rights lobby.

For instance the Ordinance allows wide powers to officers of the Local Authorities and the police to come to people's homes and demand and seize their dogs. The practice of the CMC generally, is not to return dogs seized by them and detained in the Dog Pound to their owners but to kill them. Most people are totally ignorant of the Rabies Ordinance and do not know that this law allows a dog owner to object to the killing of his dog and ask for an inquiry. Any resistance on the part of owners and the community to the seizing of their dogs even by pleading could be reported and interpreted by the officials as attempts to obstruct CMC dog catchers in carrying out their duties, which offense carries a penalty of both a fine as well as a jail sentence.

With the intervention of the WHO, rabies has been brought under control to a great extent in Sri Lanka and other countries by the mass vaccination of dog populations. Indeed it is now well known that rabies is eliminated not by killing dogs but by immunizing them. It has been the experience of many countries that even the mass culling of dogs, without an intensive vaccination campaign among the survivors will not arrest an outbreak of rabies. Elimination is not recommended even as a method of dog population control because, as pointed out by WHO experts, the turnover of population of dogs is so high in developing societies that even the highest recorded removal rates are compensated for by increased survival rates. The long-term solution to dog population control is not killing but the prevention of births through animal birth control methods, primarily sterilization.

In the Rabies Ordinance based on the colonial thinking of its time and not on the cultural background of the people and prevailing realities in the country, the dog found roaming freely is interpreted as a 'stray dog', which is described as 'any dog wandering at large and not being under the control or charge of any person'. The Rabies Ordinance requires every local authority to seize and detain all such stray dogs, and if not diseased (disease is interpreted as rabies in the Ordinance) or suspected, release them to their owners upon the payment of a penalty. All dogs detained and not claimed by owners are to be killed. It must be understood that in this country the dog found roaming within his home territory is not a stray dog 'wandering at large not under the charge of any person' as described in the Ordinance. The free roaming dog in this country is a 'community owned dog' that may or may not have an individual owner or a referral household, but is still accepted as belonging to the community or neighborhood. Apart from providing it with food, members of the community assume occasional responsibility for it for instance when it comes to protecting these animals from dogcatchers or bringing them to anti rabies vaccination and sterilization clinics.

Community dogs in turn provide security to their respective areas, guarding homes, shops, office buildings, wherever they are given food and shelter or even simply tolerated. An unseen role that dogs play is that of rat catchers, and invariably control the rat population in garbage ridden cities or towns preventing an outbreak of rat fever or plague. So dogs are an important link in the ecology of a place. Most important, these community dogs fight and chase away other dogs that try to enter their territories from outside. In doing so, dogs of one area provide a line of defence against the spread of rabies and other diseases by dogs from other areas.

Therefore, there is no justification to seize and remove community dogs and kill them or seize them and expect animal welfare organizations to rehabilitate them in homes and shelters, because dogs have their own place in the community to which they belong. WHO experts have pointed out that in societies where this bond between dog and man exists, the task of immunization is so much easier because dogs are more accessible for vaccination, and it is possible to achieve around 85% immunization of the dog population required to reach a safe margin vis-a-vis rabies.

It is therefore evident that the Rabies Ordinance ought to be rescinded and a new Act introduced to bring in the correct solution for combating rabies, which is vaccination and not the indiscriminate killing of dogs.

Provision must be made in the new Act not only for the holding of yearly vaccination clinics in each area in the country but also for back up programmes, mobile and house to house programmes targeting the roaming dog population as well. It must be binding on local authorities to facilitate animal birth control programmes where mass sterilization and neutering of dogs is carried out for effective population control of dogs. The role of voluntary animal welfare organizations in assisting the local government authorities in dog population control, rabies eradication and working for the welfare of animals must be recognized and all assistance given to them to function in this role. It must also be binding on the local government bodies to implement sustained education and awareness programmes and encourage community participation in rabies eradication and dog population control.

If rabies is to be successfully eradicated, Local Government bodies must recognize the community dog and after vaccinating and sterilizing, it must be allowed to remain in the community where it belongs. Animal welfare organizations have been spending vast amounts of funds sterilizing and vaccinating dogs to prevent the spread of rabies and to control the dog population.

After the tsunami thousands of dogs were vaccinated and several hundreds sterilized by foreign veterinary teams that came for relief work. Local authorities and Provincial Councils are themselves showing an interest in conducting sterilization clinics. Kalutara PS is conducting several clinics. However no moves are being made by these authorities to amend the Ordinance to protect the community dog and recognize vaccinated and sterilized dogs distinguished by their coloured collars as safe.

Regrettably, at present these vaccinated and sterilized dogs are seized regularly and taken and destroyed. Recently in Colombo a number of community dogs that had been saved from death in the dog pound, sterilized and vaccinated, and kept in the garden of the Mayor's residence, were outrageously seized and dumped in various parts of the city by the CMC. These dogs were sterilized and immunized in a joint programme by the CMC, Animal Welfare organizations of Colombo and teams of foreign veterinarians. This programme, rudely disrupted in this manner, was expected to be the start of a massive sterilization and immunization campaign covering all of Colombo. This act showed the contempt on the part of the CMC authorities for any attempts to introduce modern and humane methods of animal birth control to Colombo. They also showed gross disregard for the effort and the funds spent by the foreign teams on this project for the benefit of the citizens of Colombo and its dog population. Most significantly, by dumping the dogs on the road the CMC openly flouted their own policy of prohibiting dogs being returned to the community even after they have been sterilized and vaccinated.

The first step, if rabies is to be eradicated from Sri Lanka is to do away with the archaic and draconian Rabies Ordinance and bring in a new Rabies Control Act where the proper solutions are put in place. So long as killing is upheld in the Rabies Ordinance as the principal solution Local Government authorities will not seriously carry out effective programmes of vaccination and sterilization as part of rabies eradication and dog population control. They will continue to resort to the easy negative strategy of killing.

Agreements and understandings between Local Government bodies and Animal Welfare organizations are of no avail, in the absence of proper legal safeguards. It is only if the correct solutions of vaccination and sterilization are required by law will we be able protect our society from the threat of rabies and stop the senseless killing of our community dogs.

SAGARICA RAJAKARUNANAYAKE -
Sathva Mithra

Bouquet to S.L.B.C.

Referring to my letter of DN 6.9.2004 - captioned 'S.L.B.C. please change those times' and since nothing was done I wrote another captioned 'Sour Grapes' (DN 16.9.2004).

Well, up to date I was tuning my radio to different channels who had music, since 95.6 had very limited music programmes because B.B.C. had taken up long programmes. But now the newly appointed Consultant at S.L.B.C. has made my day and my entire future listening moments. Thank you and I bet so many listeners will fall in line with me.

Yvonne F. Keerthisingha -
Rajagiriya