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Facts Are Stubborn by Anton Gunasekera

Seasoned, 'anytime anywhere' export outfits from at least three among other exporting Asian and European nations - Japan, Hong Kong and Germany - noted for extensive junkyard which are being continuously dumped with 'reconditioned motor vehicles as good as now, and genuine spare parts, just in case of...' are reportedly hoping against hope that there will be no change of decision in the Year 2004 Budget to extend the 'importable' age of a used car from 3 years to 3 1/2 years.

The Government anticipates income thereby. As reported in the DN Business edition of Nov. 28, the Ceylon Motor Traders Association, (CMTA) whose members are equally seasoned wizards in the imports business, has termed the proposal as 'counterproductive' and a further threat to an already polluted environment.

CMTA has urged the waiver of the 10 per cent surcharge on duty - a boon to buyers of brand new cars. By 2004's first quarter, the already congested highways will certainly be compelled to accommodate its new quota of 'coughing cars', making the traffic police at the crossroads even more jittery.

And to cap it all, there will be a myriad 'Discounted Sale of Motor Vehicles Almost new' signboards at vantage points around the island; like the one we recently saw at an elbow bend along the Hatton-Nuwara Eliya roadway; 'Neer new motto cars is sail. Come see'. True though, the UNF Budget 2004's Finance Ministry Think Tank made this proposal with all good intentions to provide a family car at an affordable price in this day and time, when the so familiar 'schools service' operators - the majority of them - are charging unscrupulous an unsympathetic monthly transport fares from middle-class parents who are already burdened with the ever-spiralling Cost of Living.

One good neighbour's 'Schools Service' vehicle could help his other neighbours to save on fancy fares.

The two monthly pay hikes for public servants, granted by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, during the tenure of office of the previous PA Government, unmistakeably was 'manna from heaven', without which the disgruntled public service would have today been in tatters, no less led to neatly-manipulated acts of bribery and corruption.

Regular reader of this column, qualified statistician, Gamini Perera of Peter's Avenue, Colombo 4, has written in to suggest a fool-proof strategy of bridging the Budget deficit by exploiting the average Sri Lankan citizen's gullibility to the ploys employed by the deceptive astrologist and numerologist in forecasting one's oncoming prosperity round the bend. The scapegoat? - motor cars again.

Having spent the better years of his career in the Middle-East and in Hong Kong, Perera advises Finance Minister Choksy to adopt the Hong Kong Government's pollution-free 'Auction of lucky licence plates for light and heavy vehicles'. Quoting a foreign financial publication titled 'Buy-Sell Moneys Worth", Perera states (quote): 'In Hong Kong, the government earns an annual revenue of HK dollars five million, using the brand new unlicensed motor vehicle as the cynosure of numerological forecasts. Like in Sri Lankan society, irrespective of ethnicity or religious beliefs, many Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong citizens and 'working' expatriates, including Mainland Chinese, regard licence plates with 'lucky' numbers as coveted status symbols.

Such plates are auctioned by the relevant government authority and the winning bidders' plates sometimes cost more than the cars they're attached to. In the early '80s, licence plate No. 8778 fetched 20,000 dollars. The Cantonese word for 'eight' rhymes with the first syllable of 'prosperity'; 'seven' sounds like the word for 'sure'. Therefore, licence plate No. 8778 could be interpreted as 'Prosperity, Sure, Sure, Prosperity'.

Perera asserts in his note of advice that in both Sinhala and Tamil culture, national and religious traditions, there are more than enough 'lucky numbers' ranging from digits 1 to 9. Our more reputed astrologists and numerologists should be commissioned by our Minister of Cultural Affairs to forecast month by month 'lucky numbers'.

These should be passed on to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, who could in turn advertise the numbers of the 'Lucky Licence Plates' for newly-bought and yet unlicensed light and heavy vehicles in the state-sponsored print and electronic media, which could be auctioned at pre-designated venues and dates.

The continuous roar of numerology-faithful affluent bidders who would vie with one another for the 'lucky plate' status symbol is certain to send non car-owning onlookers into a fit of frenzy.

But at auction's end, the harmless, pollution-free, emission-free easy revenue per auction would be twice or thrice as much or even more than the revenue which Minister Choksy aspires to earn through the import of throw-away used cars from the motor vehicle junkyards in the Asian and European Continents, concludes statistician Perera.

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