Truth about duty-free cars: How did it become a right of all and sundry?

lhe GMOA (Government Medical Officers’ Association) now cries foul over the loss of the “right” to import cars at reduced duty.

- DR. M. M. JANAPRIYA

I hesitate to call it a privilege, for it was a right, won in principle by GMOA members under President J.R. Jayewardene in the late 1980s, perhaps during the cardiology dispute or the STF-Ranasinghe saga. The exact date escapes me, but the memory of the struggle does not. What was achieved without a drop of blood, Sweat, or tears is today fought for with all their might. The shame lies in how this right was later sort of “nationalised’, extended to everyone, while the GMOA leadership of the time looked the other way.

A short trip down memory lane

On my return from the UK after further training, I had funds only to import the smallest basic car in the market, a Daihatsu Charade, without air conditioning or power steering. My son, barely a year old then, often rode with me in that car, drenched in sweat. The experience left me convinced that something was fundamentally wrong with the way doctors were expected to travel to work.