President Mahinda Rajapaksa earned a vast measure of goodwill in May 2009 by defeating the LTTE, and went on to accumulate even more public approbation thereafter by employing his exceptional public relations skills.  In marked contrast, a number of his hangers-on have conducted themselves, from even earlier on, with an almost total disregard for public opinion and the President’s good name.  Their despicable behaviour has been increasingly eroding away the goodwill attached personally to the President.  In this situation, President Rajapaksa should be wary of thinking that the People of Sri Lanka will put up eternally with the arrogant and corrupt misbehaviour of those who are seen to be close to him.  Once a reaction sets in, even the most draconian of laws will not help to restore the status quo.  It mystifies the People as to why President Rajapaksa does not consider putting a stop to the lawless acts of the sycophants who surround him and thereby eliminate unwanted speculation as to why they are permitted to go their wayward ways.

The seeds of the destruction of the sovereignty of the People of Sri Lanka were sown by President Jayewardene’s writing of the 1978 Constitution, which provides for an apparently omnipotent President who is immune against legal suit.  In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court ruled that, whilst the President could not be summoned before a Court, there was no bar to his actions being challenged when they were in conflict with the Constitution or the Law.  Nevertheless, for various reasons, it has not been feasible to have this ruling consolidated.

Sri Lanka’s politicians’ and administrators’ increasing contempt for the law accelerated many-fold when President Kumaratunga, during her second term, insisted on going against the recommendation made by the Constitutional Council, under the 17th Amendment, to appoint a particular retired Judge to the post of Chairman of the Elections Commission.  Had she then acted in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, the People’s rights would have been safeguarded and her stature in the Country enhanced significantly.  Collaterally, she would not be so openly denied the respect that is customarily shown to retired Presidents and Prime Ministers.

Her nominee and successor as President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, lost no time in destroying the 17th Amendment altogether.  He employed his acknowledged political dexterity and his brother MP Basil Rajapaksa’s renowned negotiating expertise to disembowel the UNP, figuratively speaking, and swallow its innards!  With MPs of various colours abandoning the platforms on which they were elected to Parliament so as to savour the irresistible flavours of the Rajapaksa gravy train, the President was able secure and control a two-thirds majority in Parliament without much further ado.  It did not take long for the monstrously destructive 18th Amendment to be passed by a captive group of MPs in Parliament, who meekly surrendered their independence to the will of the President.  Not a single MP of the ruling party had the courage to stand for principle and try to protect the People from what can safely be described as a suicidal journey into despotism.

The 18th Amendment has vested the Executive with the power to act with impunity, without regard to accountability or the welfare and rights of the People.  The consequent deterioration of the body politic must be viewed with the greatest foreboding.  A few examples should suffice to make this point.

We see an unceasing succession of reports in the media about a much-despised politician.  He is reliably believed to have physically attacked the genitals of a monk MP in Parliament. He was given a rough time by the employees of Rupavahini for having got an underworld character to assault a senior employee of Rupavahini.  He has snatched and damaged valuable cameras and equipment employed by the media to cover events of public interest. The whole Country knows how this man violated the human rights and dignity of a Samurdhi officer by “persuading” this State employee to allow himself to be tied to a tree for having been unable to attend a meeting called by this obnoxious character.  He had stated in a TV programme, seen by the general public and thousands of children, that he would like to suckle at the breasts of a well-known actress.  More recently, this cowardly thug, backed by an intimidating contingent of bodyguards, was shown on TV grabbing the shirt of a defenceless parent and slapping him for exercising the right to protest against a forcible money-collecting lottery exercise initiated by a school.  Some time ago he was reported to have escorted an underworld character through the VIP lounge at the Katunayake Airport. The list of his nauseous exploits and threats against anyone daring to cross his path is virtually endless.  He has repeatedly claimed that he is the one and only authority who decides what can be done in Kelaniya – even if not in the Peliyagoda Fish Market.  The incomprehensible part of this saga is that this opportunistic and shameless groveller is seen on TV constantly loitering around President Rajapaksa.  Could anyone seriously believe that the public could be anaesthetised into accepting President Rajapaksa’s close association with a man whose background is a perpetual exercise in foul and dishonest behaviour?

We have also seen pictures of a club-wielding mob near Vihara Maha Devi Park.  The excuse given by a senior Police officer regarding this phenomenon was that these clubs may have been necessary to keep aggressive dogs at bay!  The person who was responsible for this demonstration of underworld power was no doubt encouraged by this kind of official support to confirm his own perception that he was above the law.  The confidence that he could act with impunity and not fear any legal consequences must surely have been behind a subsequent assault on the wife of an election candidate whom he did not like and, worse still, the murder thereafter of a prominent politician and several others.  Who actually pulled the triggers of the multitude of weapons which were carried during the recent deadly confrontation between the well-known UPFA stalwarts is not the point at issue here. What is relevant is that more than two years after the end of the 30-years of the large-scale armed hostilities in our homeland, the Government has made no effort worth talking about to recover the tens of thousands of small arms in the hands of professional and amateur criminals, among whom there are undoubtedly a large number of politicians in power.

There are dozens of other lower-profile characters in public office who are robbing the People blind and are engaged in nefarious activities of every conceivable description.  They hide away from the open glare of the media but operate without fear in the confidence that any unlawful act of theirs, if exposed, can be “fixed” by remaining close to certain VVIPs.

The key point that concerns us is whether the President wishes to be remembered as a national hero and statesman or as a shortsighted politician who allowed the Rule of Law to be flouted and good governance relegated to the waste paper basket.  It is true that, by violating the public trust, an imperial lifestyle can be enjoyed for years just as Bokassa, the Duvaliers, Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Marcos, Mubarrak, Suharto and others did.  But what happened to them in the end? How do their fellow citizens remember them?  How do they compare with the exemplary Mandela and the reverence with which the whole world views him?  The lessons are there waiting to be learnt; it is only the will that appears to be lacking.

The People of Sri Lanka would undoubtedly want President Rajapaksa to distance himself from the rogues and criminals who are so much in evidence these days.  How he deals with them will decide how history will remember him.

In May 2009, CIMOGG wrote to the Press regarding several questionable features of the so-called “hedging” contracts entered into by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC).  Whatever be the final outcome of the arbitrations and appeals that are involved, the public needs to look into this unsavoury episode from first principles, without being put off by the associated technical jargon.

The essence of CIMOGG’s May 2009 article titled Hedging Against Oil Price Changes is given in the next paragraph.  The full article may be found at www.cimogg-srilanka.org or at p145 of the CIMOGG book Good Governance and the Rule of Law.

What we said was that Minister A.H.M.Fowzie and certain officials of the CPC went abroad for a few days to learn about hedging in connection with petroleum purchases.  Despite price hedging being a skill which financial, economic and commodities specialists take years to master, the Minister and the CPC tried to create the impression that they would acquire during that short visit the necessary expertise to make an informed decision.  They conveniently ignored the inherent contradiction of getting the relevant training from the very banks that would obviously protect their own interests vis-a-vis the CPC.  It was entirely in keeping with the nature of this corrupt exercise that the cost of air fares, accommodation etc is reported to have been borne by the same banks.  Furthermore, the CPC officials concerned would have been well aware that many historical rapid oil price rises had been initially thought to be irreversible but that such increases were invariably followed by substantial drops to an intermediate level.  That so experienced an organisation expected prices to go up greatly but were most unlikely to drop significantly has all the appearance of having been a deliberate omission in favour of the banks.

It is known that, before Minister Fowzie and the CPC embarked upon the hedging exercise, a strong recommendation had been made to the Cabinet by Mr Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank, to get the CPC to resort to price hedging when purchasing petroleum.  Whether this advice to go in for hedging was a prudent one merits examination. A good starting point for doing so would be to look first at lotteries and gambling, and then turn our attention to hedging.

All lotteries are run by organisations which retain a substantial percentage of the sales moneys to cover their administrative costs as well as a much larger percentage by way of profits or taxes.  Therefore, even if just one person buys all the tickets in a lottery and wins all the prizes, that person will get back only a part of the total investment made, whereas the organisation responsible for the lottery (which one might refer to as the “banker” for convenience) will always get a positive return from the retained part of the sales proceeds.  When a person buys only a few lottery tickets, he accepts the reality that the chances of winning are remote but, dreaming of the off chance that Lady Luck may award him a big prize, he does not mind taking the risk of losing his small investment.  By the inexorable laws of chance, regular bettors will, except in the rarest instances, lose money on the lotteries in the long term.  The fact that a percentage of the money the banker retains is usually diverted to a “good cause” helps to counteract one’s disappointment when there is no prize.  Moreover, the bettor risks only his own money, and this fact tends to keep his conscience clear.

Gambling in casinos is rather different.  Gamblers bet on an outcome they hope will be realised.  The frequency of occurrence of a favourable outcome is generally greater than in a lottery but the prizes are usually only a relatively small multiple of the value of the bet.  The odds of winning a bet vary from game to game but the methodology of the wagering process is so designed that the casino (“the banker”) always has a handsome profit over a period of time.  If there were no profit, the casino would go bankrupt pretty rapidly.  Unlike the self-discipline that one can easily exercise when buying a few lottery tickets, the atmosphere in a casino, combined with alcohol and many other attractions, makes chronic bettors reckless.  Thus, gambling in casinos is several degrees more damaging to one’s wallet than buying lottery tickets.  Although it may be argued that the gambler is risking only his own money, he may have many dependents whose lives are ruined by his losses.  To make things even less palatable, there is no “good cause” that is sponsored by the casino to solace one’s spirit.

We now turn to hedging.  When someone goes to a banker to help insulate himself against price rises of a commodity, what he really does is to gamble that his guesses or assessments of price rises and price drops will be superior to that of the banker, whatever the formula used to compute their respective liabilities.  The banker, on the other hand, would not remain solvent if he is going to be so generous as to ensure that his clients benefit every time.  In fact, he remains prosperous because his information on price trends, backed up by highly professional internal research and commercial intelligence units, is greatly superior to that of his clients.  However, just as much as the Goddess of Chance may occasionally help a lottery ticket buyer or a casino gambler, hedging clients may also be lucky once in a while. Nevertheless, it is the banker who will win more often than his clients.  Considering that the contribution of chance to the outcome in hedging is much less than the element of prior expert knowledge, it is an unequal battle of wits between a well-informed banker and a less-informed client.  In short, hedging is a form of speculation or gambling where the odds are badly stacked against the “bettor”.  For example, it has been revealed that, in two of the recent cases in dispute, the maximum that the CPC could have expected to gain was only US$3 Million, whereas the bank was able to make a claim for US$21 Million when prices started to drop – that is, excluding other consequential claims.

Everything about the CPC hedging exercise should give any rational person, with basic common sense, a sick feeling that the people of Sri Lanka have been taken for suckers yet again by our politicians and administrators.  One is forced to the conclusion that the Cabinet was not given a realistic briefing by the officials of the Central Bank and the Minister.  That this episode is not an isolated one is seen from the years of importing expired drugs and foods, polluted petrol and uncertified cement, undersized eggs and unmarketable chickens, not to mention Sri Lanka Cricket’s TV rights manipulations and any number of other foul rackets by politicians and public officials.

CIMOGG calls upon the Cabinet to insist on some degree of accountability being assigned to the various persons involved in this more than suspicious deal although, judging by past experience, we would be unwise to wager (sic!) even two cents on the likelihood that anybody important will be called upon to answer to their wrongdoings.

THE SUNDAY ISLAND of 24 June 2011 carried a contribution by the Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG) under the title NUCLEAR POWER FOR SRI LANKA? Dr Prinath Dias, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority of Sri Lanka, in a “reply” published on 24 July 2011, has commented on it. There are two points on which he states that we have given “incorrect information”. Dr Dias’s contention is quite unjustified and needs to be countered.

It is unlikely that the average reader would have both the CIMOGG article and Dr Dias’s “reply” filed away for ready reference. Hence, it is necessary to recall briefly the essence of the issues raised by CIMOGG originally, as well as Dr Dias’s comments regarding them.

The first point made by us was that, when the estimates of the cost of nuclear power are computed in feasibility studies, resource-poor countries should take into account certain negative factors (which are normally ignored) to allow for the fact that a very high proportion of the investment will have to be paid to foreign suppliers and little of the project funds will remain in the country. The situation would be different for a resource-rich country because much of the investment would remain in the country, with significant benefits to the economy. A good economist would be able to assess the order of the adjustment required. A similar adjustment would apply to other forms of power plant as well, but to a smaller scale.

CIMOGG had stated that China, France, India, Russia, UK, USA and a few other countries would not have had to make any negative adjustment on this ground because they are resource-rich. It was also mentioned that Germany, even with all its resources, had decided to move away from nuclear power; Dr Dias had nothing to say on this. He bluntly declared that, by omitting the names of not-so-rich countries such as Armenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Slovenia, Thailand, Vietnam and some unnamed countries which have nuclear power plants functioning or being built, CIMOGG had given “incorrect information”. Our position is that, if the said countries had taken account of the economic downside and the other factors referred to by us, they may well have rejected nuclear power. Quoting them as examples to refute our reasoning does not, therefore, support the imputation that we given “incorrect information”.

Another matter considered by us was the vital importance of work ethic and discipline to ensure safety. These three factors are inextricably interconnected but Dr Dias has not commented on either work ethic or discipline. He has dealt with the safety of nuclear installations in isolation, giving them high marks on that count.

We had mentioned Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as the best known cases of nuclear failures. Dr Dias says that the Three-Mile Island failure did not cause much harm and CIMOGG is prepared to accept his assurance in this regard. However, he does reveal, in respect of Chernobyl, that 50 persons had died of cancer by mid-2005 and that another 4,000 were expected to die of cancer thereafter. Also, about 5,000 children had developed thyroid cancer of whom 99% were being successfully treated. Now, the Chernobyl explosion took place in a technically advanced country with excellent training, good discipline and a strong work ethic. Nevertheless, the supervisory and control systems failed to prevent “the plant operators extensively violating the operating procedures while conducting an experiment with the power plant”.

In Sri Lanka, radioactive cobalt machines meant for cancer treatment have been misused to convert low quality gemstones into higher quality ones! Without a much higher level of discipline and social responsibility than we now have, what would such employees do with a nuclear reactor? Merely giving training to technicians is not going to safeguard a nuclear plant. Such training should be based on a sound foundation of education for responsible social behaviour and good work ethics built up from childhood.

Dr Dias compares the number of probable deaths in nuclear accidents (5,000 per annum) to deaths in traffic accidents (100,000 per annum) and implies that nuclear plants pose less of a risk than being on the road. What makes them unsuitable for direct numerical comparison is that the effects of automobile accidents are local in nature and limited in extent whereas, in nuclear accidents, a few of which will almost certainly be bigger than Chernobyl or Fukushima, the effects will not be limited either in extent or time. For example, we have just learnt that Japan has banned all shipments of radioactivity-contaminated beef from the Fukushima area, it having been found that places 100km away had been affected. Four months after the accident, radiation continues to escape from the plant.

We reject outright Dr Dias’s assurance that “The next generation of nuclear reactors is being built to be inherently safe. These reactors are expected to be accident proof …”. We state categorically that, in engineering, nothing made by man can be said to possess “inherent safety” or to be “accident proof”. At most, the expectations could be “a low probability of failure” or a “high level of resistance to failure” respectively.

We concur with Dr Dias that “… the amount of carbon dioxide produced in our (coal) power plants will have a minimal impact at global level …”. Considering that the majority of the countries that have a greater GDP than Sri Lanka produce very much more carbon dioxide, they should put their houses in order first before pressuring Sri Lanka. There is a strong case for us to go ahead with its relatively small coal-powered electricity generation plants than grapple with the problems posed by nuclear power.

Most people know that energy from renewable sources is much more expensive than from coal or nuclear power. However, just as in the case of computers, the cost of photovoltaic conversion is coming down – unlike the costs of other types of electricity production. This is bound to make photovoltaic power more competitive and suitable for large-scale application.

The main problem with solar and wind power are their intermittent and inconsistent nature. As great advances are being made in electricity storage technology, because such devices are required for hybrid and purely electrically-driven vehicles, the storage of intermittent power from the sun and the wind is getting more practical and cost-effective.

Another concern mentioned by Dr Dias relates to the instability that used to affect the electricity distribution system when a number of small power sources were connected to it. This difficulty seems to have been overcome now because even the smallest amount of excess power is being bought by the CEB.

If the amount of money that is planned to be spent over the next 10 years on investigations, planning and designs of a nuclear power generation were to be diverted to developing innovative methods of storing energy (eg. hydrogen production), many intermittent renewable sources of power could be better utilized. It would be a shame if our scientists and engineers throw up their hands and say that only advanced countries are equipped to do this. CIMOGG believes that Sri Lankan scientists and engineers, given the right incentives, can produce original work as long as their organizations are not headed by crooks, incompetents or bootlickers. All of us must keep in mind that innumerable important scientific advances have been made in the past not by large corporations but by individual inventors working on their own, with minimum financial resources. The benefits of encouraging individual initiative and innovation in renewable energy cannot be overemphasized.

The speech made recently by cricketing hero Kumar Sangakkara for the MCC Spirit of Cricket Lord Cowdrey Lecture has drawn plaudits from almost every quarter. The fact that Sangakkara gained the rare honour of a standing ovation from a distinguished audience cannot fail to warm the heart of every decent Sri Lankan.  As a large part of our population, even in the remotest villages, gets heavily involved emotionally in sharing our cricketers’ dreams, successes and losses, the relevance and consequence of what Sangakkara had to say are obvious.

Sangakkara spoke of our long history.  He reminded us of the critical achievements of a few key persons who contributed to the growth and flowering of Sri Lankan cricket.  He told us with great pride of how all the members of the national team thought of themselves as Sri Lankans and not as constituents of any of our national subgroups.  He acknowledged the role played by government at critical moments where Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) or its predecessors could not, by themselves, have accomplished certain goals, particularly where international forces were at play or huge financial commitments were involved.  The validity of what he said on these matters has not been brought into question in any of multitudinous comments which have appeared in the Press.

There are, however, a few genuine patriots and a few “patriots” of the other variety who hold the view that Sangakkara should not have spoken about our shortcomings on foreign soil but brought such matters to the notice of the SLC hierarchy directly and got these rectified.  The strictures made against him in this regard call for examination.

Sangakkara devoted around 90 per cent of his talk to the good things that Sri Lanka can be proud of and, perhaps, 10 per cent to malpractices at SLC, which would certainly have left the average listener or reader with an overwhelmingly favourable picture of Sri Lanka rather than an adverse one.  Had Sangakkara limited himself only to praising historic Sri Lanka, its multi-ethnic and multi-religious but united cricket team, and those who contributed to its growth, the cricket-savvy audience at the MCC would have wondered why he had not said anything about the scandalous state of affairs at SLC that has been receiving no small amount of publicity in the local media and the Internet.  It was his very frankness that gave credibility to the positive picture that he had drawn of our country.

Would SLC have paid the slightest attention to any criticisms of it if they had been made by Sangakkara in Sri Lanka?  Even minimally informed members of the public know the SLC authorities are shameless and have a skin with a puncture resistance that even the toughest rhinoceros would envy.  In a recent newspaper interview, MP Arjuna Ranatunga, Captain Cool himself, confessed that his efforts to improve governance at SLC were comprehensively thwarted.  All he succeeded in was making a lot of enemies by his forthright exposure of the rotten state of affairs in that organisation.

Ranatunga has revealed that, whereas he would have preferred Sangakkara to have made his criticism of SLC in Sri Lanka, it had to be admitted that his own locally-expended efforts over the years to clean up the organisation had been totally rebuffed.  To add further weight to the proposition that any local effort to cleanse SLC would have been quite ineffective is the manner in which Minister M.D.Chandrasena condemned the SLC administration for its corruption and the speed with which he was given short shrift for expressing this opinion.  All that ensued was that he was moved to another Ministry and the SLC administration he had castigated was given a fresh lease of life to carry on as before with its iniquities.

It is said that a wise man learns from the mistakes made by others and it is only a fool who insists on making the same mistakes himself in order to learn.  Sangakkara is plainly no fool.  In the light of these two telling examples, can anyone doubt that, if Sangakkara had confined himself to a Sri Lankan platform, his representations would have been blandly ignored apart from attracting the displeasure and antagonism of all those who were milking SLC?  It is most gratifying that Sangakkara did not lack the backbone to take up this issue, however briefly, in an overseas forum so that his views would be given adequate weight not only in all cricket-playing countries but also back at home.

Sangakkara’s call is for a non-partisan, non-political administration to protect the game of cricket in Sri Lanka.  In other words, he calls for good governance in the interests of improving player morale, cutting down on match-fixing, spot-fixing and other grave misdemeanours, and discouraging criminal malpractices in all their forms.

The Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG) recognises that this country can never make satisfactory progress unless all citizens agree on the fundamental need for national unity and work towards it.  The unity shown by all Sangakkara’s team members – without regard to ethnic, religious or other affiliations – is what we have to strive to achieve on a national scale.  In this regard, no one has put it better than Sangakkara himself in his closing remarks, which are truly moving: “With me are all my people.  I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher.  I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity.  I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan”.

CIMOGG unreservedly salutes the integrity, social sense and daring shown by Sangakkara, quite apart from its admiration for his outstanding exploits as a cricketer.  We see no need to keep on heaping any more praise on him than his admirers have already done but the issues touched upon in his address need to be widely discussed and appropriate action taken.

In conclusion, we call upon Mr Upali Dharmadasa, the current Chairman of SLC, to do whatever is necessary to put right everything that has gone wrong over the past many years.  We are aware that he has enough wealth of his own already to be able to resist any temptation to enrich himself at the cost of SLC and should therefore take this opportunity to work hard and conscientiously to join the ranks of people like the late Gamini Dissanayake, MP Arjuna Ranatunga and the others who were praised by Sangakkara so that he (Mr Dharmadasa) may be similarly remembered by future generations.

China, France, India, Russia, UK, USA and a few other countries with enormous financial and technical resources, and highly trained and disciplined work forces, are going ahead with the construction of nuclear power stations whereas an equally advanced country like Germany has decided to phase out even its existing ones. What should Sri Lanka do?

There is no question that, if you ignore certain major factors which apply particularly to small and relatively poor countries, nuclear power can superficially be shown to be one of the more economical sources of energy for the production of electricity. But can Sri Lanka afford to ignore these factors? That is the question that the Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG) has asked itself and offers its answers for the consideration of our technical and political decision-makers, and the Sri Lankan public.

The first point of consequence is that the advanced nuclear power countries possess the required scientific and engineering knowledge themselves. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, would have to pay a premium to gain access to almost all this knowledge and keep on paying heavily for all subsequent improvements. As in most commercial transactions, the prices quoted at the time of tendering or initial negotiations would be held at an attractively low level to persuade the customer to accept the suppliers’ proposals. Once a commitment is made and the project is completed, the supplier would be free to raise its prices for technical supervision, consumables (especially nuclear fuel) and spares. There would be little room for bargaining. This type of disadvantage would not be experienced to anything like the same extent in the case of other forms of power production, where the technical requirements are invariably far less complex. The monopolistic element would be there, say, in a coal power station as well but not to the degree of exclusivity that would be associated with nuclear power. Hence, Sri Lanka would be very much more vulnerable to extremely high price increases in the case of nuclear power than in the case of the other less complex means of power production.

The next point of importance is that most of the funds that an advanced country spends on its nuclear plants remains within that country and it is only a few items, eg. uranium, which it would have to buy from outside. On the other hand, in the case of a less developed country, 80-90 per cent of the total expenditure would be in foreign exchange and only 10-20% would remain within that country. Contrastingly, if other simpler types of plant are considered, the corresponding percentages would be much more favourable, except perhaps for photovoltaic installations. Whereas the expenditure on a nuclear power station could significantly help the economy of a country with nuclear capability, it would have a large negative effect on the economy of a less developed country. Therefore, one should take into account the collateral disadvantages of spending money on a nuclear power station in relation to its impact on the rest of the economy. This cannot be done with great precision but a good economist would be able to make a useful assessment.

We next turn to the incidence of accidents, technical failures and Nature’s interventions by first considering the hypothetical failure of large dam, which could in extreme circumstances kill hundreds of thousands of those living downstream. We may note immediately that catastrophic collapses of large dams are unknown because of the simplicity of the structures and electromechanical components, apart from the precautions taken in the investigations, planning, design, construction, operation, monitoring and maintenance of such projects. Nevertheless, in the extremely improbable case of one failing, immense volumes of water would pour out and flood the valleys below but almost everything on high ground would be generally unaffected – and certainly not anything that is outside the river basin. The effects of the flooding would be “local” in effect and could, for all practical purposes, be erased within a period of some years, at a cost that can at least be computed, albeit roughly. As opposed to this, radiation and contaminated material from a nuclear calamity could affect large areas of our planet and some of the wind-blown radioactive particles may render far distant areas unfit for the survival of most forms of life. The cost of mitigating the damage caused by such an occurrence would, in CIMOGG’s view, be so enormous as to be impossible of estimation beforehand because one cannot be certain of the way the winds and sea currents will carry the contaminated air and cooling water, or how much radioactive material would be consumed by fish and other marine organisms. The worst aspect is that, in the case of some of the biologically harmful materials which are likely to be released, their radioactivity would decay to only half the original value even after some hundreds of years. Although nuclear power promoters will say that there are stringent safeguards to prevent or limit radiation damage, there have been a number of serious and threatening precedents – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima being the best known – that do not encourage one to lay great store by such assurances.

The fourth issue that we must be aware of is the scale of compensation that we would have to pay other countries (apart from our own citizens) for radiation which spreads outside our borders, affecting not only the land and air but all biological systems. Whilst we may be able to get away by paying compensation of a million rupees to a Sri Lankan for death, injury or a living death, the reparations that would be claimed by foreign victims could run into many billions of dollars.

The US spent long years to identify and to try to develop, within a mountain of geologically stable rock, a huge cavern to store spent nuclear fuel but the public reaction in the chosen State was so adverse that the authorities had to abandon the scheme. As for Sri Lanka, is it conceivable that there could be any place within its borders where nuclear fuel could be stored safely for centuries?

Operating a nuclear power station requires a degree of supervision and assiduity which is of a whole order more intense than that required by any other source of energy because the consequences of a major mishap in a nuclear power station would far exceed in scale those of any other type of power facility. The discipline, self-sacrifice and commitment to the welfare of the public that was seen in the case of the Fukushima disaster were so exemplary that we would have to admit that, as a nation, we have yet to reach those levels by a very wide margin. There was no looting of abandoned buildings. Queues for emergency supplies were orderly and patient. Strikingly, the personnel of the nuclear power station did not let the frightful danger of exposure to high levels of radiation prevent them from going about the work of trying to limit further damage and release of additional radiation. The most heartwarming of the stories that came to be associated with the Fukushima disaster was the offer by long retired personnel of the station to take over damage limitation and repair work from the employees currently working in highly hazardous conditions. By doing so they were trying to ensure that these younger personnel would not have their lives cut short prematurely by being exposed to more radiation than they had already received. In all honesty, could we be sure that we would be able to rely, to the same extent as those of the Japanese, on the work ethic and sense of responsibility of present day Sri Lankans? Could we leave the running of a nuclear power station to those who are not highly committed and responsible or are we going to rely on foreign personnel to run these stations? Would they be as duty-bound to Sri Lanka as they would be to their own countries? There is no use talking about isolated instances of our countrymen who have in the past sacrificed their lives to save those of others in danger. It is the whole of society which has to reach the higher standards required.

On the face of it, one could grade the sources of power for a small, developing country approximately as follows –

• Nuclear - Potentially the cheapest but with excessive open-ended risks, both economic and environmental

• Coal power - More expensive than nuclear but with less economic risks. Substantial environmental negatives

• Wind & Solar Panels - Most expensive but with the smallest environmental negatives and physical risks.

The other sources, such as geothermal, tidal, wave-activated, solar heating etc, will need a lot more study before they can become serious competitors in our conditions. Consequently, our fellow citizens may find it prudent, in the long term, to rely on the old “Chinese” adage: “Good things no cheap; cheap things no good”, and commit themselves to the higher priced but safer sources of electricity based on wind and solar panels, now that we have only a relatively small amount of untapped hydropower left.

As far as one can judge, the matters referred to above are not taken into account by those who advocate nuclear power for Sri Lanka.CIMOGG does not claim to be an authority on nuclear power or any other type of power but puts forward these common-sense observations in order to promote wide public discussion (which our governments almost invariably discourage) so that vested interests and technocrats do not puzzle us with figures which do take into account simple realities, and thereby push us into a desperate situation from which there could be no retreat.