Sudath Gunasekara President Senior Citizens Movement Mahanuwara 7.5.2015.

As I have pointed out several times earlier the present number of MPP (225) is already too much by any conceivable standards, for a small country like Sri Lanka. This you can see when you compare the number of representatives other countries have as already pointed out by many writers in these columns. As such the decision to increase 225 to255 or 260 is ridiculous, deplorable and unpardonable. But this decision by our politicians is no surprise to anyone in a country where a government ‘by the politicians, for the politicians and of the politicians’ and their henchmen, both unofficial and official has come to stay permanently. This is also no surprise when we look at the way our politicians have behaved over the years when it comes to issues that benefit them. Look at the priority our MPP, ‘who go to Parliament to serve the people’, had given when they got approval for their full pension they get at the end of five years in violation of the pension minute and all known social ethics and morals of a welfare state. (incidentally the MP’s Pension bill was passed as Act No 1 by the 1987 Parliament)

If they are truly sincere and really interested and genuinely committed for service to people and the good of the people and the country then what they should have done is to reduce the present number immediately by about 100 so that the country could be run with about 125 MPP and thereby save the tax payers money in billions and divert such funds for development of the country, instead of increasing the present number of Mpp or Magodis tumas’ as the press has appropriately dubbed them.

Increasing the number of MPP by another 30-35 means firstly, an additional burden of at least Rs10 million a month, on the tax payers. Secondly, for WHAT PURPOSE do we waste such additional colossal amounts ON ANOTHER parasitic bunch of rogues going by the way how the present 225 representatives are behaving? Even the naked little boy by the road side knows that the present day politicians serve only themselves while deceiving the masses with impunity and without shame. One has also remember that in addition to the 225 MPP we also have the exorbitant luxury about 650 provincial Council politicians at the moment on whom the people of this country have to spent billions to maintain them and their families and to provide them with additional facilities like buildings, staff, security, vehicles and office equipments and foreign trips etc who do no service to the people but enjoy a luxurious life at the expense of the suffering masses, only for collecting votes and commissions for the 225 ‘MAGODISTUMAS’ in Parliament and regularly herding participants for political rallies of their parties all over the country.

Isn’t it time at least now that people of this country rise in unison against this ignoble political culture and start a nationwide mass movement to invent a system where we install politicians of integrity, honesty and unblemished character, who will be committed for the good of the people and the country in place of doing everything for their own good as it is done today, in the seats of power.

The whole nation should deplore, protest and vehemently oppose this decision to increase the number of MPP and also call for an immediate abolition of the Provincial Councils system which will help the country to save billions of rupees and get rid of the present corrupt and parasitic political culture that ruins this country