I am now the Minister for Beer in Sri Lanka. Cheers!

Ayubovan! Vanakkam! Hello! Allo! Salam! I know you/my Sri Lankans and my expatriate friends didn’t hear from me for a long, long time. I am sorry about it. Then again, what do you expect from the Minister for Nothing to Do in the Socialist, Democratic, Undemocratic, Crazy Republic of Sri Lanka.  This is the only country which boasts of a Minister for Nothing to Do, though others ministers don’t do anything at all.  They only make calls and receive calls and then deny them. Thanks to you people I still enjoy all the perks, luxury apartments given by dealers, security, backup vehicles, allowances, overseas travel etc.

I have good news for you now.  I am no longer the Minister for Nothing to Do in Sri Lanka. I am your Minister for Beer. Let’s say cheers to start with. I thank The Island for giving me space to announce this.  I took oaths in front of all the pubs in Colombo . It was full of activity and I along with my staff were high above limits. I am sorry, therefore, no photos available because even the photographer was high with beer.  When Mangala decided to reduce the prices of beer (Eran objected to it saying he doesn’t drink beer, but, occasional holy wines served at church), the cabinet wanted to appoint a new minister for beer, taste beer and to do anything and everything with beer.  I think it is Long John from Wattala who proposed my name from the UNP side, and Seeni Bola Dissa from Hanguranketha from the SLFP side who seconded my name. How could I say no when it was a joint Green/Blue proposal. These days my eyes are getting blue after few shots, which is another matter.

My oath in front of pubs was as follows. ” I, Bandula Parakum Jayasekara, who was brought to the cabinet from the national list/ back door side do solemnly swear to be the Minister for Beer  of the Paradise Isle, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. I promise to educate all Sri Lankans on the health benefits of drinking beer. I promise to convert my wife, girlfriends, mistress, sons, daughters, other peoples wives, neighbours, their wives and children to drink beer, from water and other safe drinks. I will work hard towards promoting beer to enable beer manufacturers to make  profits at all times. I swear to be drunk with both power and beer at all times”  I really wouldn’t know who drafted this bloody thing. However, I  strongly suspect Aloysious brothers, Mahendrans , people with the initials RK, RW and other respectable people of Sri Lanka.

Now, I have the power to do anything and everything. Don’t ever say its Dutch courage , because this is Sri Lankan courage and we  produce  good beer.  Sri Lankan beer is the best in the world. I am going to sponsor all sporting events in the country, even school cricket and rugger tournaments. I have also made a proposal to my buddy, Sumathipala of cricket fame, that the Ministry of Beer is willing to sponsor the national cricket team for a period of five years. I told Sumathi ” Don’t worry machan. Win or lose we booze” He thinks its a good idea because everyone at the matches will be drunk with beer and they wouldn’t know if the Sri Lankan cricket team has won or otherwise. Sports journalists will be offered a special package throughout the tournament. Intoxicated, they will write only good things about Sumathipala’s cricket team. We will invite the Chefs of Sri Lanka  to produce a special beer snack in association with the Tea Board , wherever it may be.  Do we even have a tea board, now that Beer is the national drink of Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan cricket will be well taken care of, and in the future my colleague Dayasiri will not blame Malinga and co for having bellies. A Beer Belly is now approved by the cabinet of Sri Lanka and Dayasiri will have to abide by the collective cabinet responsibility. He too will soon sport a beer belly. Don’t blame me if he decides to do the belly dance for you though.

In the future all fish will be exported to India and Norway and Sri Lankan snack joints will only serve Beer banis (buns) beer rolls, beer pies etc.,  since we have to find ways and means and new methods of increasing the sales of beer. Prices of water will be increased immediately and plastic beer bottles will be introduced to the market at a cheaper rate. Private bus drivers, CTB bus drivers will be given  10 cans of beer weekly, free of charge. Passengers are welcome to purchase at any given time and all buses will sell chilled beer.

I  have proposed to sponsor the Royal Maha Vidyalaya and Santha Thomas School annual cricket and rugby matches. It sure will be a free for all sponsorship. After all, the decision to reduce the price of beer was proposed by a former student of Royal Maha Vidyalaya a government school, Mr Samaraweera, my esteemed wine drinking cabinet colleague. It sure has the blessings of the likes of the dear PM, Malik his right hand former rugby playing man, Akila , the education minister who doesn’t know the difference between a book and a computer, and of course Sagala who is in charge of the police, until he is woken from deep slumber. He told me all the police stations will be provided with ice boxes and coolers  to enable them to serve chilled beer to both the victims and criminals of Sri Lanka. He told me that by teaching them to drink canned beer, the crime rate will come down drastically in the island. The Government of England will co-sponsor this.

There is also a master plan to infiltrate the Joint Opposition and the JVP with beer diplomacy, and if it fails through beer attacks. We just signed the agreement with a British PR company. They will handle all the dirty work re the campaign . Money was provided by the budgets allocated to cabinet colleague R. Bathudeen  and Long John. They both are of the view that tourism in the country will improve with the price reduction of beer, and even Germans and Australians will fly all the way to Sri Lanka, just to drink beer.

May be I shouldn’t give any more information to you people, now that you people are far too happy with the beer prices down. After all Sri Lanka is  socialist,  democratic and destructive .  Anyways, I got to go to do some beer teasing (see we have even stopped eve teasing in Sri Lanka)  and beer tasting.

Cheers Men.  Cheers women!