{"id":176658,"date":"2017-04-26T00:26:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T18:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=176658"},"modified":"2017-04-30T00:02:41","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T18:32:41","slug":"meethotamulla-corrupt-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/meethotamulla-corrupt-politicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Meethotamulla &#038; Corrupt Politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Barbara+Seneviratne&amp;x=9&amp;y=4\">Barbara Seneviratne<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_156713\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbara-Seneviratne.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-156713\" class=\"size-full wp-image-156713\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbara-Seneviratne.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbara-Seneviratne.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbara-Seneviratne-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-156713\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barbara Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">Oh! my heavens how lucky we are to have such conscientious ministers, members of Parliament and C.M.C mayors who suddenly were\u00a0awakened to the cries of the folks who were victims to be buried alive by the so called loving, faithful, dedicated politicians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This mountain\u00a0of garbage at Meethotamulla was deliberately built with no concern\u00a0for\u00a0the health hazard\u00a0it created for\u00a0the poor but not for the unscrupulous politicians who with the help of the C.M.C. mayors and contractors\u00a0pocket nearly Rs.8 million a year. It\u00a0is no\u00a0wonder\u00a0that they gave no ear\u00a0to the people of the area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">However, let us\u00a0hope that garbage mountain at the\u00a0Ginganga in Galle would not face the similar fate as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Meethotamulla&amp;x=5&amp;y=8\">Meethotamulla<\/a>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>This garbage mountain at Ginganga could be seen if one takes a boat along the river towards the Jet wing hotel. It will be another catastrophe and the livelihood of most of the people living close to the river and the garbage mountain is operating boat tours for tourists along the river. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">These politicians\u00a0spend thousands of rupees on spirits and food at elections not for the benefit of those who voted for them but to harvest a larger amount of black money. Another\u00a0instead reason why they want the old system of provincial councils is\u00a0because that system would enable them\u00a0to line their pockets from the funds allocated for the<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">development of village roads, schools and local hospitals which they promise\u00a0to do but they never do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Unfortunately we do not get\u00a0people\u00a0of\u00a0the caliber\u00a0of\u00a0Lalith Athulathmudalie, T.B Illangaratne, T.B Subasinghe or\u00a0Anil Moonasinghe as members of Parliament. It is said that 90% of our politicians are uneducated. This was supported by Bandula Gunawardana&#8217;s\u00a0speech\u00a0and wherein he stated that a family of four could comfortably\u00a0live\u00a0on an income of Rs 2000\/ per month. The majority of politicians of today are good at collecting their 10% commissions from tenders but lack the ability to propose or deal with any of the outstanding problems of today in the areas of education,\u00a0health, water and electricity. They hardly have the capacity to visualize or detect what is good or bad for the country, but good at organizing strikes or dashing coconuts on the roads. They are also good at delivering grandiose senseless speeches to hide their disabilities. How can we expect these corrupt, unscrupulous politicians who extort money or sexual favors and who take advantage of the innocent folks to fill their pockets be concerned about the plight of the community.<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">Their behavior in parliament also indicates<b><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/b>their disability to be decent, and disciplined.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For decades<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">politicians have not taken garbage dumping issue seriously. The best part is that it is for these politicians that the government gives free rides abroad, duty free luxury\u00a0vehicles<b><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/b>and pension after just for 5 years for behaving like a bull in a china shop.\u00a0Beside for attending\u00a0Parliament they get an extra payment. Sri Lanka may be the only country that pampers politicians be\u00a0they crook or to prevent them from crossing over to other parties or through fear that they will expose\u00a0the culprits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">It is time that the\u00a0President\u00a0realizes\u00a0that preaching at all functions will not deliver the goods. The prevalence of political corruption has had a number of consequences. It\u2019s affected the country\u2019s economy to a great extent. It is high time that the government\u00a0and\u00a0the President guarantee that corruption in all institutions would be exposed to the public and would instill discipline at all levels. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The president must further ensure that racial discrimination is no longer legitimate under the law and any sign of it that can be fought legally is taken to the courts. He must further take serious action against police manhandling of witnesses and presenting false charges in courts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The country\u2019s court system can\u2019t effectively deal with corruption either. This is because the court system is engulfed with injustices and corruption is deeply rooted. For example the prevailing legal system is weak to punish corrupt politicians. <\/span><span class=\"s5\">No society can succeed without a proper social order and no successful society has ever existed without the rule of law, which is a necessary and sufficient perquisite for economic growth and development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":156713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Meethotamulla &amp; 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