|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Wednesday, 24 December 2003 |
 |
|
 |
Letters | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Sports Obituaries
|
Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
Monitoring unregistered financial institutions A Central Bank spokesperson speaking to the press says it is impossible for the Central Bank to bring every single financial service institution within its regulatory scope. She also says that the numbers of newly emerging financial institutions are small and therefore the Central Bank was not looking at amending the law to bring these institutions within its ambit. The two statements are contradictory. If the numbers are small there should be no difficulty in monitoring them. On the other hand, she also implies that the numbers are small to incur expenses in amending the laws. On the contrary many believe that the actual reason for not amending the law is something else. The owners of these institutions are well connected to some politicians and top officials of the Central Bank. Therefore they are given the freedom for a few more years to swindle the public without Central Bank intervention. Recently, a writer to a newspaper (A.D) in a very informative article analyzed there are 61 companies registered under the Banking Act and the Finance Companies Act and 58 unlicensed/unregistered institutions. These 58 institutions do not come under the purview of the Central Bank. Central Bank is fully aware the risk of losing deposits with these 58 companies is far greater. It is purely not because these companies are not supervised by the Central Bank, but for the fact that persons without much integrity own these institutions. As far as the Central Bank is concerned they have done their duty by informing the public that they do not supervised these institutions. The attitude is to safeguard themselves and not to serve the public. Many letters also have been written by those living on interest income how they are finding it difficult to make ends meet with the Government policy to bring down interest rates. Business is booming for most of these unregistered financial institutions as they pay a higher interest. Those who deposit money in these institutions would not understand the meaning or the purpose of Central Bank supervision. Specially after the Pramuka debacle these institutions tell their customers even banks collapse with all the Central Bank supervision. We are in a position to pay you a higher rate of interest as we don't have to deal with Central Bank officials! Quite a number of depositors have fallen prey to such clever sales talk. Many civic minded citizens have written letters to the press highlighting the urgent need to monitor these institutions. Until necessary legislation is enacted, there are other measures that can be taken by those who honestly care about the unsuspecting depositors. Make it mandatory for all non-registered deposit accepting institutions to display to the public a prominent notice that the institution is not approved by the Central Bank to accept deposits. No qualified personnel are required to monitor this. Give the necessary powers to he Police. This is much easier than checking revenue licence of a motor vehicle in the hot sun. These institutions should also be required by law to indicate on all letter heads, receipts etc. that they are not supervised by the Central Bank. The Central Bank can also mobilize the resources of the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board (SLAAMB) to monitor the activities of these financial institutions. Make provisions in the relevant Act to make it mandatory for all institutions accepting funds from the public to prepare accounts in compliance with SLAAMB Act. Then all these institutions will automatically come under the purview of SLAAMB. At present the SLAAMB, which is staffed with highly qualified personnel, renders no service to the public and is an unwanted burden on the taxpayer. They will therefore be only too glad to render some service in the interest of public in common. In the meantime I beg of these financial institutions to be fair by the depositors and offer a free life insurance cover, as long as they have the freedom of making hay whilst the sun is shining (with the benevolence of the Central Bank). C.B. GUNAPALA, Private bus services in Jaffna In most parts of Sri Lanka the Mini Bus has almost disappeared on the main roads and now Leyland/Tata Class A buses with 48/52 seats ply on these roads. However in Jaffna still only single door mini buses ply much to the inconvenience of the passengers. No time tables are available in any of the bus stands. A mini bus has seating arrangements for about 25 passengers but actually more than 50 men, women and children are packed inside the bus before it leaves the bus stand. The conductor continues to load people en-route without considering whether there is space or not. Tall men cannot stand within these buses. The women folk find it extremely difficult to stand, breathe or move their limbs. They sweat profusely. They are not all treated respectfully by the crew but considered as just money paying beings with no rights. The Women Rights Associations in the North do not seem to understand the gravity of the problem where Tamil women cannot travel decently in most of the mini-buses. No tickets are issued and the passengers are left to the mercy of the bus crew. The bus conductors seem to get maximum pleasure when the bus is loaded to more than double the capacity and the driver begins to speed and apply sudden brakes to avoid a pot-hole or an accident. There are no ticket checkers to check en-route. The police have probably not attempted to charge the bus crew for overloading, speeding or reckless driving. Though Jaffna has been under normal civil administration for more than 8 years yet no serious effort has been made to rectify this situation. Only a very few CTB buses are available in Jaffna and the frequency is perhaps one bus per hour or so, per route. This does not meet even 25 per cent of the demand. There are no A/C buses or semi-luxury buses available, so that those who can afford or those who are weak, elderly or sick can travel seated a little more comfortable. After A9 road was opened, buses ply from Jaffna to Mukamalai frequently but almost all these are mini buses and passengers are very much inconvenience because they so over crowded. I trust that this will catch the eyes of the Transport Ministry Officials in Colombo and request that they try to encourage entrepreneurs to invest in Class A buses to ply in Jaffna and also check on the conditions of the mini buses now plying, the rampant over crowding, speeding etc. at least on the main routes, so that the people of Jaffna will benefit. V. REGUNATHAN, I was grieved to hear of the death of Ven. Soma thera, who passed away on Friday in Russia. He was ordained in 1974 under the tutelage of one of the most Reverend monks in Sri Lanka, Most Ven. Madihe Pannaseeha Maha Nayake thera. Having obtained his ordination in 1974, he wrote Buddhist texts in Pali and did a lot of restoration work in teachings of the Buddha. Ven. Soma thera established a new temple in Noble Park in Australia in 1993. I, as the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka, visited this temple in the year 1994. This visit was made available to me by Rodney Arambewela, Sri Lanka Consul in Victoria, Australia, during my official visit to Melbourne. I was accompanied on this visit by my wife, Rodney Arambewela, and the Foreign Minister of Australia. He was glad to meet me and the party and was pleased to see me when no other Sri Lankan High Commissioner had visited him. He told me that he wanted to collect some money from the Sri Lanka Australian community to buy a land as his premises at the moment were not big enough to provide the Buddhist services on a global scale. I found later that he had bought a 5 acre block of land with the help of the Sri Lanka community and founded the Sakyamuni Sambuddhi Vihare, in Melbourne, Australia. He came to Sri Lanka and realized the need to inject Buddhist teachings into the mass of the people and actually he worked so hard and undertook that task earnestly. He travelled widely in Sri Lanka spreading the message of the Buddha to lead simple lives. His preachings were accepted with venerance. I was fortunate to meet him in Australia and subsequently this year I met him again in Deniyaya sometime in May. He had come to Weralla, the house of my wife's father, the late. M.D. Yapa, on my father-in-law's death anniversary. There was a vast crowd assembled on this day to listen to him. I told him to come to Kandy and that I would arrange a Bana preaching in Peradeniya where I reside. But he told me that he could only come after November this year. He had to go to Russia where he was to accept an Honorary Doctorate to be conferred to him by the Russian Government. But alas, after a heart attack he passed away. The country has lost a priest who could converse in Sinhala and English. My family and I have personally lost a friend and a teacher. Sri Lanka has lost a Ven. priest. NISSANKA WIJESUNDERA, The true servant of the Buddha
To many who ran helter-skelter Just as Anagarika for the Americans A Bhikku with a difference to Buddhist Faith - Kasturiarachchi Warnakulasuriya 'Sinhalese is the origin of all other languages' A close examination of the article by Ariesen Ahubudu (A.A) to the Daily News reveals three misquotations and many deletions and tampering of the 18th century statement on language by Samuel Johnson. The original correct statement and the misquotes and deletions etc. are indicated below to facilitate comparison: The original statement reads as follows: L1. "There is no tracing the connection of nations, but by language; L2. and therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost L3. because languages are the pedigree of nations - Samuel Johnson." The three misquotes in A.A's article are: 1. "I am almost sorry when any language is lost because the language is the pedigree of the nation." 2. "The language is the pedigree of the nation." 3. "The language is the pedigree of the nation." Tampering and deletions in A.A's article: 1. As many as 13 words of lines 1 and 2 from the very first word "There", up to the word "therefore" have been deleted in order to distort the intended meaning of the correct statement. 2. The words "languages are" in the original have been tampered in this misquotes by A.A to read as: "language is" 3. The words "connection of nations" in the original have been tampered in misquotes 1, 2 and 3. The intended meaning of S.J's original statement: 1. The purpose and the intended meaning denoted by S.J's statement is quite clear from line 1: from the words: tracing the connection of nations by language. 2. In this context, the word "pedigree" denotes the line of the language family. e.g:English, Japanese, Tamil and so on; and the ancient ancestor language of that family. e.g: I.E., Mongolian and Dravidian, respectively. Hesketch Pearson's statement on misquotation. "Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned a widely read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely." 1934. A. GAMAHELAGE, |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
