With the festive season fast approaching, Sri Lanka, for the first time in its history, is staring at the very realistic prospect of enduring a shortage of its staple food: rice. While the reasons for it are many, and admittedly some beyond reasonable control, the bottom line is that it is the regime in office that has to face the music and ensure that people are not deprived of their staple diet at the beginning of a new year.

With Sri Lanka primarily being an agricultural nation, throughout history rice has understandably been a touchy subject with the potential to decide the fate of a regime. And indeed, there have been occasions where rice-related issues have brought down regimes as well as installed others in office. It was in 1953, just five years after receiving independence, that the first rice-related issue cropped up, with the United National Party (UNP) regime at the time collapsing over the issue of the price of a measure of rice being increased by 70 cents. Then in 1970 the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was planted in office with Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike promising to bring rice from the moon.

However, with the subsequent UNP Government embarking on the accelerated Mahaweli development scheme, thousands of acres of land in the dry zone were brought under paddy and other crop cultivation, which brought the country to self-sufficiency in rice and restored its ancient heritage of being the ‘Granary of the East’. Ever since, while there have been no serious production shortages of rice other than due to weather-related issues such as floods and droughts, rice-related issues have primarily been anchored around artificial shortages created by millers as a method of price manipulation.

It is ironic that it is the current National People’s Power (NPP) that while in Opposition lambasted successive governments as being held hostage by the ‘rice mafia’ consisting of a handful of large-scale millers. Outspoken NPP Member of Parliament Wasantha Samarasinghe in particular was harsh on regimes past, constantly ridiculing them over their perceived inability to detect ‘hidden rice stocks’ that invariably led to price escalations. 

Now, as Minister of Trade, he has been forced to eat humble pie, with his regime being at the receiving end of the same allegation of being unable to tame the so-called rice mafia. The reversal of the status quo also highlights how fickle politics can be and how things can be drastically different while in the driving seat as opposed to being in Opposition and making all manner of wild allegations.

Samarasinghe seemingly appears to be clutching at straws in order to save face in light of the impending crisis. He has attempted to shift blame for the crisis to rice millers as others have done in the past, but in the process appears to have ended up with egg on his face given his recent utterances. Speaking in Parliament last Friday (6), Samarasinghe accused a particular rice miller with connections to the main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) as being one of the primary culprits hoarding large stocks of paddy. The Minister accused the miller of taking millions in loans from banks to purchase paddy and then not releasing a single kilo of rice to the market thereafter.

However, the very next day, yesterday (7), the miller in question summoned a press conference and called Samarasinghe’s bluff by producing his rice production data for the entire year so far. Interestingly, the highest production and release to the market has been recorded in the last two months. Not stopping at that, the miller openly challenged the Minister to a debate and expressed his willingness to publicise production details as well as financial dealings with banks.

Depending on half-baked facts provided by parties with either vested interests or little knowledge of the subject has, on many occasions, put powerful regimes in trouble while almost always eroding their credibility and approval ratings in the process. The NPP, which is still learning the ropes of government, appears to be either more susceptible to the machinations of the bureaucracy or is continuing to play the dangerous game of being economical with the truth. It is also learning the hard way that promises need to be kept and excuses count for nothing.

Thus far, as far as the people are concerned, the changes made have essentially been cosmetic, seemingly aimed at the social media audience. For instance, it is reasonable for people to expect a scaling down of expenses as a result of cutting down on such things as over-the-top security escorts, etc. 

But it so happens that the allocation for the President in the Vote on Account passed without a vote last week is almost the same as the allocation for former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose lavish spending, including on dozens of foreign trips, was the target of much criticism by the NPP. The similar allocation of Rs. 1.4 trillion for both Wickremesinghe in the first quarter of last year and Anura Kumara Dissanayake for the same period this year resulted in at least one Opposition MP claiming that the system had not changed but the President had.

Be that as it may, given the growing deficit between what was promised and what is being delivered – be it in taking the fight to the rice mafia, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) mafia, or even the fuel sector mafia and the continuing status quo on the economic front, with the regime going back on its promise to alter the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement to better suit the interests of the nation – the promises are all beginning to appear hollow, made without proper knowledge of the subject or due to the inability or unwillingness of the regime to take the bull by the horns.

As far as the CEB is concerned, it is a well-known fact that it operates as a law unto itself, with powerful trade unions, most of which are directly aligned to the ruling party, holding sway and calling the shots on how it operates. As a result, CEB employees are among the highest paid in the State sector, probably only second to the Central Bank, and are often in the habit of dishing out bonuses to themselves even when the entity is making huge losses.

However, the steep price revisions made by the former regime in line with cost-reflective pricing imposed by the IMF as part of the conditions in its bailout package saw unit prices doubling and trebling, imposing a heavy burden on the consumer. The high electricity prices have had a cascading effect on the cost of living, with manufacturers and supply chains adding the increased costs to their products and services. 

On the flip side, the increased prices have enabled the State monopoly to make huge profits that even triggered a public discourse on how those profits should be funnelled back to consumers by way of reduced prices. In fact, it was the NPP while in Opposition that was at the forefront of that discourse, with no less an entity than the current President promising the people on election platforms to slash electricity prices no sooner he assumed office, even going to the extent of specifying the quantum of reduction. 

Now, nearly three months later, the status quo remains and as per the latest submission by the CEB to the Public Utilities Commission, the current rates are to remain for the next six months. This comes in the backdrop of a sharp decline in production costs, with nearly 60% of units generated in the recent past coming from hydropower owing to the bumper harvest in the catchment areas. Yet this cost benefit is not being passed on to the long-suffering consumer, including the tourism and industrial sectors, for reasons best known to the regime while unions are back to making noises about bonus payments.

What is becoming difficult for people to digest is the fact that, be it the rice issue or the electricity tariff reduction issue, it was none other than the NPP that shouted the loudest while in Opposition and solicited the people’s support in return for instant action. People are patiently waiting for that action.