Wanniarachchi was also guilty of pathetically pandering to the whims and fancies of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), a trade union which has become a law unto itself during this regime and runs a mafia-style operation, shamelessly manipulating younger doctors who are not specialists
What is even more intriguing is that President Rajapaksa is not short of medical professionals to choose from among his MPs. On medical credentials alone, the best choices would be either Tissa Vitarana, a virologist of repute who once headed the Medical Research Institute or SudarshiniFernandopulle, the State Minister for Covid-19 control who is also a specialist community physician
After one year in office and in the midst of the country’s greatest health crisis since independence, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa this week reshuffled the Cabinet- and what an anti-climax it was.
He who proclaimed that his Cabinet would be selected in a ‘scientific’ manner merely decided to swap the portfolios of six ministers, shuffling the subjects they held. No one was dropped from the Cabinet, nor was any one added to the Cabinet, not even ex-President and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) leader MaithripalaSirisena.
The so-called ‘highlight’ of the reshuffle was the removal of Health Minister PavithraWanniarachchi. The decision made international headlines because Wanniarachchi was already renown as the Minister of Health who promoted a magic potion as a cure for Covid-19. So, when she was removed, global media lapped up the story eagerly and revealed her plight to the rest of the world.
Wanniarachchi told the media after her removal as Health Minister that it came as a surprise to her. She only learnt of the change in her portfolio when she was called by the Presidential Secretariat, she said. This is an indication of President Rajapaksa’s style of managing his ministers and how distant they are to him, despite the public show of unity and camaraderie which is nothing but a facade.
The surprise however was not Wanniarachchibeing replaced. After the blunders she committed- kissing the Chinese tourist who contracted Covid-19, throwing pots of ‘holy’ water into a river to mitigate the threat of the corona virus, sampling the notorious ‘Dhammika peniya’ in public thereby sending a misleading message to the masses and watching on helplessly while the pandemic escalated in to hundreds of deaths per day- that was only expected.
That is not to say that mismanagement of the pandemic was all Wanniarachchi’s doing. Medical experts who dealt with the former Minister say that they were always treated with the utmost respect by Wanniarachchi who valued their opinions and gave them due consideration.
Nevertheless, Minister Wanniarachchi was also not assertive enough and could not prevent the entire Covid-19 management strategy being hijacked by the Presidential Task Force led by General Shavendra Silva which marginalisedher and reported directly to the President. In the deliberations of the Task Force where the dominant voice was that of the President, she may have been heard, but she was not listened to.
Wanniarachchi was also guilty of pathetically pandering to the whims and fancies of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), a trade union which has become a law unto itself during this regime and runs a mafia-style operation, shamelessly manipulating younger doctors who are not specialists. So, Wanniarachchi’s departure from the Health portfolio will not be lamented that much.
The surprise was Wanniarachchi’s replacement: former Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella. Rambukwella is a hotelier by training- not that he has excelled in that profession. He is perhaps better described as a political opportunist who crossed over from the United National Party (UNP) to the then ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) headed by Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2006.
That ‘jump’ has served Rambukwella well for he has spent eleven of the subsequent fifteen years in government as a minister. He has also been involved in several controversies- such as falling off a balcony in a Melbourne hotel-and hasn’t distinguished himself as a spectacularly successful or performance-oriented minister to warrant his elevation to a crucial portfolio at a time of national crisis.
What is even more intriguing is that President Rajapaksa is not short of medical professionals to choose from among his MPs. On medical credentials alone, the best choices would be either Tissa Vitarana, a virologist of repute who once headed the Medical Research Institute or Sudarshini Fernandopulle, the State Minister for Covid-19 control who is also a specialist community physician, if the former is not the best fit because of his advanced age.
Even if Rajapaksa was worried that the integrity of Vitarana and Fernandopulle was such that they might voice their independent opinions about the pandemic, he could have chosen from his own protégé, Seetha Arambepola or even Channa Jayasumana who has shown ample loyalty to Rajapaksa in being ‘flexible’ with the facts related to the pandemic. There was also Ramesh Pathirana, Cabinet spokesman and already a cabinet minister who has been more a politician and less of a doctor in his public utterances.
Yet, President Rajapaksa has decided to ignore all these doctors at his disposal and appoint Keheliya Rambukwella as the new Minister of Health. The message he sends is the same that he has been sending to the medical profession for the past several weeks: you maybe doctors but I am in charge and I will tell you what to do; the pandemic will not be managed the other way around.
So far, that policy has resulted in disastrous consequences. The daily death toll from the pandemic announced by the government which was averaging around fifty per day just a fortnight ago has now sky-rocketed to 170 per day. Despite loud demands from several medical professional bodies for an immediate lockdown to prevent deaths from escalating further, the answer from Rajapaksa late last week was a resounding ‘no’.
That is also the same reason why KeheliyaRambukwella was sworn in as the new Minister of Health. Rajapaksa knows that he will echo His Master’s Voice and sing the same tune. In that, he would probably do better than PavithraWanniarachchi.
As a footnote to the so-called ‘Cabinet reshuffle’, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs and the heir apparent to the Rajapaksa dynasty, Namal Rajapaksa was also given a newly created portfolio with a convoluted title of ‘Development Co-ordination and Supervision’.
Observers have noted that some of those institutions which were shifted to Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa when he was first appointed and then returned to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa a few days later have now been vested under Namal Rajapaksa. Some of them are crucial institutions such as the Treasury, Department of Inland Revenue, the Department of Customs, the Central Bank and all other banks. That is a lot of responsibility on young Namal’s politically immature shoulders.
This then is a reshuffle not worth the paper it is written on. As far as the corona virus pandemic and our long-suffering citizens are concerned, we can only say that the more things change, the more they will stay the same!
