A pension for the Leader of the Opposition?

Pensions are what people receive after retirement for the services they rendered during their active life. The thinking is that a nation should be grateful for its senior citizens for the services they rendered.

However it is the state sector that continues with pensions whereas the private sector has adopted a ‘provident fund’ to their employees at retirement. This pension nevertheless plays a very important role because people get attracted to state sector jobs even though for a lesser salary because the jobs are ‘pensionable’.

Such people, even though they forgo what is called the ‘provident fund’ are really more provident in their thinking for they receive an income all through their life for serving a stipulated period of time. For instance my mother served as a teacher for 20 years in government schools and now she has received her pension for 30 years and still continues. However recently there was a big commotion at the Katunayake Free Trade Zone. That was because the workers did not want pensions that the government was so keen to give. They protested so hard against the proposal that one worker died and a few got injured.

Worker issues

The Zone had to be closed for a few days and finally even the Inspector General had to tender his resignation. All because, the government wanted to give the workers a pension, in addition to their ‘provident fund’! However the argument was that the workers have to contribute for ten years to become entitled to the pension and if not they forgo even their own contribution and that of their employer.

They also maintain that according to the existing records an average worker in the Zone works only for five to seven years and the workers are mainly girls who have to make some money before they get married. Yet these arguments will not hold water for a provident thinker. If you could work for seven years why couldn’t you stretch it by another three years when there is a reward of an income for your lifetime!

Politicians’ pensions

All this is because our politicians do not allow the workers to think clearly and for themselves on worker issues. They know that the worker issues are politically explosive and so they think of their own providence even at the cost of the workers provident. Hence they shouted from the roof tops that, “this is a way of collecting revenue for the government as the government knows that the majority of workers leave without completing ten years”.

On the other hand, if they were really concerned about the worker provident they should see why the workers could not hold on for ten years and advise them to do so since the reward for doing so is ‘sumptuous’. But this is how it goes in this land of democracy; the politicians always ensure their own providence even at the cost of the providence of the country and its people.

JR Jayewardene gave a pension to the MP for only completing five years in the Parliament and thus it may appear unreasonable to ask the workers to wait for ten years when the legislators get their’s after five years. But those who advocated this line of thinking to instigate workers are themselves enjoying this benefit.

Therefore when it comes to pensions Sri Lanka certainly is a land of politicians for they twist and turn it for their own survival. However this is not all when it comes to politicians’ pensions and their providence. We have a Leader of the Opposition now serving in his 17th year and why do we have a Leader of the Opposition in our Parliamentary democracy? According to Benjamin Disraeli, the former Prime Minister of England, “No government can long be secured without a formidable Opposition”. Thus the duty of the Opposition and that of the Leader of the Opposition is to be a force capable of regulating the government by waiting in the wings of governmental power. But the present Opposition in Sri Lanka is hardly a force to be reckoned with today and with every election it is showing signs of weakening itself further. This has never happened in the history of Sri Lankan politics and the trend has been for the two opposing parties to come to power alternatively.

International intervention

The reason for this state of affair in Sri Lanka today is primarily because the current Leader of the Opposition has chosen to follow the wrong course of action for the sake of being different.

His opposition has not been in line with the aspirations of the people in this country and thus he has no hope in hell of coming to power and therefore being a worthy Opposition. During these 17 years, in order to save his job this LOP has invited international intervention and has even politicized the Army. That is his providence but those moves have been nationally improvident.

In democracies like England when a party leader loses an election he automatically leaves making way for another to take over. That is the best the Leader of the Opposition could do in the interest of the party and the country. In a democracy the post of the Leader of the Opposition neither belongs to a single party nor to a person but rather it is part and parcel of the state in fronting a national opposition.

Therefore those who make various allegations against the government for not being ‘democratic’ had better look at the main organ of our democratic system, the Leader of the Opposition to see whether currently that office is living up to the duty that it is expected to perform. If not, it would be in the best interest of this country to pass a legislation to entitle the Leader of the Opposition for a pension at least after 20 years and retire him so that somebody worthy of that position could take over.

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