EDITORIAL - Govt. has mixed its priorities

he priority mix-up and the subsequent mess it has created are evidently haunting the Government prior to the upcoming presidential polls.  A key weapon in the common opposition’s armoury to attack the government seems to be the so-called mega development projects it carried out from 2010.  Though the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Government may have wanted to bank on these mega development projects to come into power again, it appears that it would be the last thing these projects could do because almost all of these mega projects are marred by corruption.
The need for physical infrastructure is irrefutable. No country could grow without proper infrastructure in place. But there are two basic aspects any government should be careful with when they invest on infrastructure. They are -- priority and corruption.

Since most of the time, infrastructure is built on borrowed money, a Government should make sure that such funds go into priority areas. The priority should be decided mainly on the positive economic outcome and the impact on the living standards of the people. Most of the mega development projects the government has embarked on have neglected these two key elements.

For example, let’s take the Southern Expressway, Sri Lanka’s first toll-paying highway. It was mainly built on loans borrowed from Chinese sources at high interest rates. According to a former minister and present leading figure campaigning for the common opposition candidate Maithirpala Sirisena, the annual capital and the interest payments for the Southern Expressway exceed its income by much, much more. Since the Government has not successfully refuted the claim with facts, the allegation stands true.  Thus the Southern Expressway is currently making a negative economic outcome.

Let’s now examine whether the Southern Expressway improves the life standards of the general public.  On the surface, one would say it helps one to get to Galle in just one hour so it does improve one’s living standards.  Yes, in that sense it does. But has it improved the living standards of ordinary government servants who every day come to work in Colombo from Galle or Matara by bus or train? They cannot pay Rs.800 every day to travel on the Expressway. Therefore, they take the bus or the trian Colombo-Galle route. Despite the highway their living standards remain the same.Mind you, they are in the majority.

So, one might be led to ask, ‘what should the government have ideally done?’ What they should have done was while improving the conditions of the more existing roads they could have invested on a better and efficient public transport. At the same time, they could have developed secondary cities, probably in places like Galle, Kandy, Kurunegala, Trincomalee and Jaffna so that people do not have to travel to Colombo.  This would have brought a better economic outcome and an improved living standard and a much needed inclusive growth.

Another classic example is the widening of the road network in Colombo. Have this refurbishing and the widening of the roads resulted in less traffic in Colombo? They haven’t because the number of vehicles on the roads in Colombo has significantly increased thanks to lower import duties on vehicles. This has caused Sri Lanka’s oil import bill to shoot up as well. On the other hand, have the widening and the paving of the roads improved the living standards of the people, in Colombo and the suburbs, who commute by bus or train? Therefore what the Government could have done was to draw a plan to improve public transport with the help of the transport-sector experts in the country. A developed, comfortable and efficient public transport is definitely an incentive to those who travel to Colombo every day in their personal vehicles. They will start using public transport so that the country could spend less on imported fuel.

To their credit, politicians in the common opposition appear to have realised this and they have pledged to re-evaluate some of the ongoing and proposed development projects on the basis of priority and contribution to the economy and improvement in living standards.
Will the mega infrastructure projects, though some may call them  image-building projects, cost incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa an election?