So the much hated Petroleum Corporation has given a New Year gift to the people of this country in the form of a further increase in the prices of diesel and kerosene oil. There can be no doubt that this increase had the approval of the President and her Cabinet of Ministers. They should have been aware of the tremendous repercussions it would have on the every day life of the people who are already groaning under the weight of an unbearable cost of living.

Apart from the unconscionable increase, its timing when the people were in the midst of the New Year festivities, is a telling commentary on the heartlessness of an insensitive government which appears to be confident that whatever further burdens are inflicted on the people, they will take them lying down. The President no doubt knows her French history especially in the period before the French Revolution of (1789) when Marie Antoinette contemptuously remarked that if the people do not have bread let them eat cake! Burdens are heaped on the people with every passing day while those in the seats of power live in the lap of luxury watching the sufferings of the people with sadistic delight thinking their good times will last forever. When Nemesis comes, it will be too late to repent.

The Chairman of the Petroleum Corporation came on TV the other day and made a very feeble and amusing attempt at justifying these increases on the ground that the Corporation was incurring massive losses. Had he told the public of the steps if any he had taken during the past twelve months to cut down wasteful expenditure, to eliminate the massive corruption going on at all levels, to stem the political recruitment of ten people to do the work of one employee and the rationalisation of procedures and restructuring of the management, to introduce greater efficiency which he has adopted, he could have made his case a little more convincing.

No, he does nothing of the kind. The corporation is incurring losses and according to him, it is the people of this country who are to blame and therefore have to pay to keep this thoroughly inefficient and corrupt set up going.

Make no mistake dear readers this is certainly not the end of these ruthless increases. There are more hardships to follow not only in the way of further increases in the prices of fuel, but also the rippling effect that these increases will have on other sectors of the economy.

The Government must bow its swollen head in shame at the way things are being done now. The budget has become a sick joke. Soon telephones, electricity, gas, bus fares, milk foods and other essential items will show a big increase and life will become a living hell thanks to the ill-conceived policies of a government which has found a convenient scapegoat in the north east war to cover up its shameful ineptitude to run this country for the benefit of the people rather than for their own benefit.

While all this is happening, the forces of revolution are licking their fingers with delight and planning and plotting to strike when the people’s dissatisfaction with the powers that be reaches a boiling point. Isn’t there at least one Minister in this bloated cabinet to raise a voice of protest and resign to show his disagreement with these murderous policies?

P. T. de Silva
Mount Lavinia