Sri Lanka versus Jamaica

Thanks to Prof. Damith Wickramanayake (Computer Science UTECH) and his wife, Sharlene, I just spent a delightful, entertaining, and educational three weeks in Sri Lanka.

Like Jamaica, Sri Lanka is an island nation and a former British colony (formerly known as Ceylon). It looks a lot like Jamaica, too, only much larger, lusher, more populated, and cleaner.

After travelling over much of the island on well-maintained, mostly pothole-free roads, using their cheap, reliable public transportation system the question that kept popping in my head was how come we in Jamaica can't get these basic things right?

Why is it so hard for us to even keep our tiny island clean?

It has to do with a lack of respect by our politicians for the people.  Keeping the environment clean for its citizens is a basic necessity!

Sri Lanka has twenty-two million people and is about five times the size of Jamaica, yet I only saw one place as dirty as most places in Jamaica. That was at the bus terminus in Anbalagoda, near Galle, where both local and city-to-city buses pick up and drop off their passengers.

You know how they keep their island clean? Simple. They pick up the refuse constantly, day and night, for on almost every road you travel, you run into vehicles working, be they small garbage trucks, tractor-drawn carts, and even three-wheel-drawn carts, all picking up and hauling away garbage.

So, if a third world country with seven times our population and about five times as much rainfall as we get can do that, what's stopping us?

And talking about rainfall, their water does not settle on the roads and create potholes, so why does ours? 

Sheer political corruption, for if the contractors we employed were professional instead of being mainly political hacks, they would be putting in proper drainage and building solid roads so we wouldn't be throwing away the billions we do and getting nothing but potholes in return.

The other basic thing I mentioned was how they move their twenty-two million people effectively, cheaply, and quickly. The transportation sector is highly subsidized to make sure their low-paid masses can get around easily and on time.

They use a combination of rail, private bus, cars, three-wheelers, bikes, public bus, taxis, ride-share and you don't wait for hours to move from any point to where you are going. 

They even have their own airline too and the service is excellent!

I have used them all, and the prices on the ground are ridiculously low.

Sri Lanka is not a wealthy country with mineral resources like bauxite. Their economy earns from manufacturing, remittances, exports (mainly tea and rubber), agriculture, and tourism. Their tourism arrivals are not even as high as ours, as in 2024, they had just over two million arrivals, whereas we had over three million.

 So, where is all our money going? Why can’t we see it in basics like good roads, proper transport, and a clean environment?

I have news for you, though. It wasn't always like this, for in 2022, being pushed to the brink because of mismanagement and political corruption, the people rose up and took action.

At that time, the GDP was revised down to a -7.3% growth rate, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. And inflation had climbed to 70% in what was described as a debt-ridden nation.

The people naturally blamed their political leader, President Gotabaya, and his cabinet for their economical malaise, took to the streets, and literally chased him out of town.

An interim government was formed, and in 2024, President Dissanayake, who campaigned on an anti-corruption, pro-poor platform, became president.

In 2024, Sri Lanka's GDP grew by 5.0%, marking a strong recovery from the 2022 crisis, according to Wikipedia.

 Sure, there are problems there as salaries are extremely low and poverty is pervasive. But things are extremely cheap.

I had been alerted by my generous host, Professor Damith, that things were extremely reasonable there, but had no idea how cheap they were until I got here! 

For example, I paid about J$ 50 for local bus fare on a government bus. Less than Ja$500 on a four-hour train trip. Ja $375 for a solid phone charge cord, 30 cents for a cup of coffee, and on and on.

It's surreal.

Cultural differences

Of course, things are not all hunky dory for despite Sri Lanka having had the first female prime minister in the world, (Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the international airport is named in her honour), I find women in my age group and even younger, reticent about being treated equally in the domestic environment. 

Shrinking violets, to put it mildly!

 However, I understand the younger generation is having none of that, so it’s changing rapidly and the escalating increase in the divorce rate seems to be bearing that out! (From 5% to 50% in the last few years, according to Professor Damith.)

Another big difference is that Sri Lankans are big organ donors. According to a senior surgeon with whom I was speaking, this is because Buddhists have a giving culture. So not only are they quick to donate some organs when they are alive, but a vast number have living wills authorizing their organs to be harvested when they die. He informed me that each year they reap so many eyes, that it’s Pakistanis who benefit most, as there is no need for so many in Sri Lanka!

I am still a bit puzzled about a characteristic I observed there, though, for in general, they appear to be quiet and peaceful people in their interactions with one another. In other words, when I travelled on crowded buses or trains, all was quiet. No boisterous shouting/cursing or loud music like at home.

 Yet they do not seem to have a problem with violent upheavals!

So, between 1983 and 2009, they had a long, brutal civil war, which I am told left over 130,000 people dead in its wake. And during the political upheaval in 2022, when the president was literally thrown out of office, many people were killed and wounded.

Could this be a perfect example of still waters running deep?

 RE food, See:

 https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2025/05/omg-im-allergic.html

 NBA.  Most Sri lankans are dedicated Buddhists and keep the most beautiful and intricate shrines in their homes.

 

 

Another nine-day wonder?

 I wonder if that excellent investigation by the Integrity Commission which unearthed the alleged corruption at KSACMC and the top executive at NWC, will cause the Holness administration and its minions to stop harassing/maligning that institution and allow it to do its work in peace!

Or if the spotlight now turned on the corruption at the Building Department of the double-dealing KSACMC will be just a talking point or will something be finally done about that institution that has caused nothing but grief for many struggling homeowners in the corporate area?

Me, hold my breath?

No way.

I am of course referring to the Integrity Commission’s exposure which caused NWC top boss Mark Barnett to be sent on leave by the NWC and now face prosecution.

The 'delinquency' of the Building Department is not new. And it has cost the Municipality, homeowners, and taxpayers, dearly over the decades.

Right now, the spotlight on that department has to do with new developments in upscale areas but the headaches the department caused over the years, have long been visible in places like Richmond Park, Eastwood Park, and Bedford Park.

I resided in Bedford Park for decades, and their refusal to prosecute businesses that operate there illegally caused nothing but frustration for us forever, despite the fact that the breaches were reported ad nauseam. 

Not to mention the unnecessary cost to taxpayers in general. For, the commercialization of residential areas causes the rapid deterioration of the roads which were never built to the standard necessary to withstand commercial activity. So, on the rare occasions when the authorities repair these roads, it’s the general public that has to foot the bill.

Why?  Because “Money talk and bull#&@%** walk!”

That is what the first operator to breach our covenant told residents when he turned his home into a heavy-duty commercial operation and a delegation approached him. And yes, the KSACMC refused to do anything about it, so more and more illegal operators followed suit until the road became almost undrivable. The entire area deteriorated and life became miserable for homeowners despite regular reports to the so-called regulators, the KSACMC.

“Money talk and bull#&@%*...walk.”

As a victim of that corrupt municipality, I know them well. Yup,  and there have been many successive administrations at that sewer pit.

I couldn’t believe it when I recently heard an apologist saying the problem at KSAMC was that they didn’t have the funds to employ enough building inspectors!

Do you know what the penalty for operating businesses in residential areas is? If my memory serves me correctly, it is in the range of $25,000 per day once the infractions continue. And they were always reported and totally visible!

But while the violations continued for all to see, the KSACMC happily gave up that revenue because individuals at the monitoring and enforcing institution were being paid millions not to enforce the laws. So, as the neighborhoods became run down, people who had worked long and hard to own a home had to move out of sheer exasperation.

The unprosecuted violations over the decades elicited an occasional report in instigative journals, but successive administrations would do nothing about the disgraceful and outright corruption at that municipality, so one can only assume they are all complicit!

Now it continues, not only with the commercialization of residential areas but also with rampant building violations in apartment development in areas with large lots.

That’s what the much-maligned Integrity Commission has brought to the fore by the exposing of the NWC boss and “delinquency” at the Municipality.

Will the exposure lead to any cleansing of the stables at KSACMC?

 I doubt it, for we are notorious for our love of nine-day wonders followed by a “bagga mout,” but no action is usually taken.

Many decades ago, it was reported that the late Sir Alexander Bustamante had once disbanded the KSAC because of the entrenched corruption there. After my experience with that institution, as far as I am concerned, the time has long passed for another cleansing there.

If the latest Integrity Commission's Report leads to that action, they will be more than well worth their existence, despite the determination by senior politicians to destroy them.

Deflecting the Blame

If ever there was a puny, sick, hypocritical attempt to deflect the blame for the appalling crime situation in Jamaica from the politicians, it was that presentation in parliament recently by Minister of Education Ronnie Thwaites, in which he labeled some schools as crime incubators.

For just about everyone knows that Jamaica being in the top five of the murder capitals of the world, is a direct result of the activities of some of the politicians themselves, no one else.

For it is the politicians who created the garrison constituencies which research has shown, has produced some 80% of the violent criminals who continue to haunt the country.

Oh yes, we in Jamaica  like to boast about our democratic traditions but we find it convenient to forget while talking about this  "democracy" to ignore the fact that some 25 % of the constituencies are garrisons or have large garrison segments where the people must vote as the dons, (gunmen supported and armed by some politicians) instruct them and in some garrisons, the people are even virtual slaves who must give the dons a portion of their earnings and send their children to them on demand, to satisfy the sexual pleasure of these well armed enforcers.

In the constituencies controlled by dons on behalf of some of the legislators sitting in parliament, a politician getting up to 120% of the vote in an election has not been considered unusual in Jamaica!

After establishing the tradition of garrison politics, mainly between the 70's and 80's, what we have today is the children and grandchildren of the original dons who were nurtured by some politicians,  growing up to become successful gun criminals in their own right and being the main perpetrators of the extreme violence in the country.

While listing the schools that Thwaites claimed statistics showed produced most of the criminals who were polled in prison, what he failed to tell the country was that most of  these schools were in the garrisons created by the politicians, so it is the environment that the kids were coming from that made them deviants, not the schools.

No attempt by Thwaites or any other politician to sanitise the role some of our leading politicians or deflect the blame from them {many of whom have been  hailed and deemed Most Honourable,) for making Jamaica one of the most murderous places on the planet, can succeed, for our memories are not that short!