Lotus bud that should never blossom

Reproduction

Lotus bud that should never blossom=Trickery

The Tower of Guilt unveiled

September 20, 2019, 8:29 pm






















SLFP’s Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera will have to give up on his calls for the SLPP and the Gotabaya Rajapaksa team to have a common symbol if contesting the polls in an alliance between the two parties.

President Maithripala Sirisena has now sent the symbol of Gotabaya and the SLPP into celestial heights with the opening of the Nelum Kuluna – the Lotus Tower of political display and pain of expenses.

The Lotus Bud at the peak of the Nelum Kuluna stands out in both day and night, giving a big boost to the symbol of the political forces that support the candidature of Gotabaya Rajapaksa for the presidency, and the hopes of Mahinda Rajapaksa to be the next prime minister.

The same Lotus Bud also reminds one of corruption that was the core feature of the Rajapaksa regime, the failure of the yahapalana successors to curb such corruption, and promote more of such massive frauds in governance.

The biggest farce of the Nelum Kuluna is the absence of the special features and facilities for radio, TV, and digital communications that were the supposed key services of this tower. It is a travesty of governance that saw a ceremonial opening of a building, whatever its height, which did not have any of the key features it was built for. This is a continuance of the Sirisena farce in national leadership.

This tower gives Sri Lanka another cause for pride, having the tallest tower in all of South Asia. This is very much the height of foolery. Modern communication facilities do not need such heights, and the planners of this tall farce in communications must take delight in the height of fantasy that the Sri Lankan people have been led to, in an age of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Digital Communications.

How proud should we Sri Lankans be at having more of modern ballroom facilities, high class restaurants, one more big auditorium, a museum, and other showpieces of elegance in construction?

This is a display of the farce of building carried out with plenty of Chinese loan facilities, engineering and construction that this country was led into the Rajapaksa-Chinese march to disastrous expenditure. Many of this is seen down South in the Hambantota District, with the Sooriyawewa Cricket Stadium, the Mattala Airport, the Hambantota Port (at the time of its ceremonial opening), and also the Colombo Port City Complex. These great showpieces of the Rajapaksa Regime remain the huge cost exercises for the country, and certainly great profit for the Chinese funding facilities.

Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa was quick to issue a statement about the absence of any fraud in the Nelum Kuluna exercise. The subsequent news items show that President Sirisena has not done a proper search of the Nelum Kuluna cost realities. This may be one escape route for the Rajapaksa Regime, but it certainly does not erase the record of corruption that is part of that regime, where Maithripala Sirisena was a Cabinet Minister and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was a key mover and administrator.

There is not much time left to probe all the corruption of the Rajapaksa Regime. Such probes will certainly blend with the huge frauds such as the Treasury bond scam, the bizarrely costly premises rented for the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as the continuing rise of Samurdhi expenditure, some of the big dirt of the Yahapalana regime.

The Nelum Kuluna will stand out and rise as the tallest symbol of the corruption that has been the operational principle of governance in this country in the past three decades or more. It is a straight tower of crooked politics and administration – with the lotus bud at its peak having petals that stand out for fraud, corruption and thievery that have been and remains the feature of governance whether by the Greens or Blues.

It is a Tower of Guilt that displays the political trickery and fraud that have become the ‘values of governance’ by supposedly competing political forces. The forces that suddenly think of abolishing the Executive Presidency – after the latest election has been announced, while doing nothing about the related Bill that was in parliament for more than one year!

It is time for the social forces, lining up against the corrupt politics in the coming presidential and general elections, to use this tower as the symbol of crooked politics – as displayed by the competing candidates from the main Green and Purple political teams of today. This will remain a lasting and tall symbol of fraud that prevails in our politics and governance.

The Nelum Kuluna must be used as a ‘Pivithuru Kuluna’ – a Tower of the Clean – that the country needs amidst all these corrupt parties and candidates – especially of Green and Purple hues, in the current presidential poll campaign.