EDITORIAL - THE DOOM BEHIND THE BOOM: DANGERS OF BANKRUPTCY

The book, launched at a well-attended ceremony in Kotte on Monday, is turning out to be a bestseller as President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Opposition’s common candidate enter into their second week of campaigning for what analysts see as the most crucial presidential election on January 8. The figure 8 is supposed to be lucky for the President, but several astrologers who appeared on a popular TV talk show last Monday gave different opinions raising questions as to whether we are now seeing stars with the politics of astrology and the astrology of politics.

Wherever the stars may be pointing to, Mr. Ranawaka who is highly qualified and is known to back up his claims or charges with facts, and figures and documentary evidence, dealt mainly with the politics of economics and the economics of politics.

Mr. Ranawaka, General Secretary of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, told the Daily Mirror in an interview published on the op-ed page today that he had written this 55-page book closely studying the economy on the basis of modern technological innovative processes starting from the transistors in the 1960s to the computers and online revolution of the early 1990s and today’s nano technology. He said that essentially the economic policy being formulated by Finance Ministry Secretary P. B. Jayasundara and Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal was a wicked process of robbing or looting from the poor to pay the bills for the rich and ruling elite to maintain their vulgarly extravagant lifestyle. Mr. Ranawaka said the trend towards creative and innovative technology and knowledge-based economy has led him into a deep study of a green economy - the study of a sustainable economy based on the battle against climate change because if Mother Earth and nature are destroyed, then we also will be destroyed along with whatever economic system we are following.

Mr. Ranawaka, now one of the most powerful critics of the Rajapaksa Government, said his aim was to break the illusions and expose the fallacies of the sunshine figures given by Mr. Jayasundara and Mr. Cabraal, misleading the President and other Government leaders to boast of making Sri Lanka the miracle of Asia while in reality the economy was going bankrupt. He told the news conference that if Mr. Rajapaksa were re-elected, he believed the economy would  go totally bankrupt, Sri Lanka would become a failed state and generations to come would suffer the consequences.

Some of the most dangerous and damaging aspects highlighted by Mr. Ranawaka in his book is the shocking fact that more than 90 percent of Government revenue is generated through taxes and 80 percent of that amount are broad-based taxes paid by the common people. Taxation was intended to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, but in Sri Lanka the little that the poor have is being grabbed from them and given to the rich to make them richer. Shocking and shameful for a country with a hallowed civilisation and culture based on helping, sharing and caring for each other. In practical terms Mr. Ranawaka said that for a litre of petrol the tax was Rs. 52 and for a litre of diesel Rs. 17. This raised transport costs and thereby increased the prices of hundreds of essential items needed by poor and middleclass people. Not only the poor, even the babies and the little children were being robbed through a tax of Rs. 135 imposed for a one kilo packet of imported milk powder.

The most devastating fact he revealed was how the magnitude of the debts owed by the Government had been spin-doctored. By changing the standards and regulations governing financial management aspects of state institutions, they had managed to branch out and replace the debt in other state establishments. For example, the debts of certain state institutions that were earlier managed by the External Resources Department had now been transferred to the relevant institutions such as the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Water Board.

Independent economists need to make a deep study of Mr. Ranawaka’s book and educate the people on what is really happening, so that they could make an informed choice on January 8.