The economy should be geared for the South Asian market and not to the global market -the fly by night investors
Last week, no less a person than the most trusted ally of President Sirisena, the General Secretary of the UPFA Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera said there were four RAW agents in the Cabinet, whose names would be exposed in due time. 
Wonder why RAW would want to spend on four moles in the Cabinet when one or two at the most can tell them all that they wish to hear at half the cost.
The General Secretary of President Sirisena’s SLFP Minister Duminda Dissanayake said, people didn’t deliver on their responsibility in Sri Lanka, but did others’ work.
Addressing a gathering in Thalawa he said, that politicians turned to singers, singers’ advice on business, doctors’ advice on economy and monks’ advice on politics.
“There’s no way forward unless we do, our part of the job,” he said.
Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya has sent a strong letter to the Government and registered political parties alleging, the Government not deciding to hold PC elections allowed a dictatorial rule in the Provinces through the bureaucracy.
PM Wickremesinghe speaking to new GS Niladhari appointees had said, Sri Lanka would be better off by National New Year 2019.
That’s just four months away. Meanwhile, the rupee further depreciated and is around Rs.173 per US dollar, expected to hit the 200 rupees low by Christmas.
Verite Research, a Colombo based research and think tank, announced that the 2018 Budget had failed to deliver on its proposals during the past six months.
“Of the 38 proposals we were tracking, only 50 percent had action plans or progress reports that were released by relevant agencies,” said Verite’s Research Director Subhashini Abeysinghe.
It was said, the undisclosed proposals that totalled Rs. 45 billion, included proposals for education reforms, urban regeneration and establishment of medical faculties in three Universities.
Tuesday last, former MP Kesaralal Gunasekere, wrote to the Daily Mirror an article headlined Get the country back on track.
Gunasekere’s opening lines are worth quoting.
“We are going through a very critical phase in Sri Lanka. The country needs immediate measures to put things back on track, which will give short and long-term lasting results……mindful that our programmes MUST give results, which benefit all citizens, and not just a few……For example, we are all well aware, that the airport in Mattala, the port in Hambantota, the Convention Centre in Hambantota and even the Uma Oya-project in the Uva Province have not given us the expected results.”
This is a glimpse of what’s happening around us. The political leadership crisis in Government, lack of a clear vision for the future, the total absence of proper planning, reckless Governance without direction, pathetic inefficiency in State administration topped up with continuing corruption and fraud, completes the extremely unpleasant picture three years plus after Rajapaksa was ousted.
Within this chaos, all major projects that Gunasekere has listed and has not, are mega deals- no doubt-packed with heavy corruption.
They were used against the Rajapaksa leadership during the two elections in 2015. In the year 2015, we saw many “anti-corruption” leaders popping up in Colombo, with numerous ‘name boards’ doling out “information” on mega Rajapaksa corruptions to the media, almost every day.
Three years and 10 months after the 2015 Presidential Election, Mega Rajapaksa corruption is no more the sustaining factor of this extremely difficult Yahapalana co-habitation.
None of the big sharks they named during the elections has been booked to date with convincing and firm evidence.
Then came the case against Johnston Fernando and two officials, who were tried for misappropriating Rs.5.2 million.
All were acquitted by the Kurunegala High Court Judge Ms Menaka Wijesundera on lack of credible evidence. This took steam off from all anti-corruption campaigns the JVP, the Colombo Yahapalana apologists and the actor, deputy minister cum publicist Ranjan Ramanayake were politically living on.
Meanwhile, the UNP leadership has not been able to climb out of the Bond Scam debris, with Arjun Aloysius and Palisena still in remand prison.
Latest is State Minister Senasinghe alleged of fiddling with the high-speed railway project, while there are questions over BOI itself over decades.
He was pitifully stuck in the stinking pit of the Bond Scam too.
There are many others in the UNP who are very much in ‘business.’
Now coming back to Gunasekere’s lament to have the ‘country back on track’, the most important question is, ‘which track should we get back to?’
This country can never be put on its feet unless development is redefined within a paradigm shift in economic policy and strategy to benefit all citizens and not just a few as requested by Gunasekere.
Sadly, all who want to have the country back on track, don’t question the filthy role of the free market economy that creates this chaos.
The free market economy can never be packaged without corruption and cannot be designed for the benefit of all citizens.
In fact, free markets are never designed and planned. They are exclusively urban markets, left open with the role of the State switched to facilitate a free for all, with the filthy rich collecting all profits.
It is not about who runs the Government. The next man or woman who sits on the saddle after the 2020 Presidential Election would be no better. Perhaps, would be far worse. Be it Rajapaksa, Sirisena or Wickremesinghe, corruption is what FDI projects for export production thrive upon in these free markets.
"Country can never be put on its feet unless development is redefined within a paradigm shift
None of the big sharks they named during elections has been booked to date"
Chinese, Indian and all other investors come here to hoard big money in double quick time with massive State concessions, at the expense of the taxpayer.
This has been no different in Malaysia, in the Maldives, in Bangladesh, Pakistan and in all places where ‘free markets and investments’ decide what ‘development’ is. In free markets, big money that comes and goes does not take ‘People’ into account and ‘People’ are not necessary except as cheap, unorganized labour.
From the Hambantota Port, through Mattala Airport, the International Convention Centre, the Colombo Port City to the once sweetly sung Megapolis Development, is not a development the people need and a necessity for the people.
Thus, nothing has changed, though the Presidency and the Government did from Rajapaksa to Sirisena-Wickremesinghe.
It was just that with Yameen and China in the Maldives and Razak and China in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, it took a 93-year-old man to come back and tell what went wrong and what goes wrong.
“We do not want a situation where there is a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries,” said Mahathir Mohamad, recently re-elected Prime Minister of Malaysia at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing after meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. (NYT- 20 Aug. 2018)
Concluding a five-day visit, the NYT reported, Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday that “he was halting two major Chinese-linked projects, worth more than $22 billion, amid accusations that his predecessor’s Government knowingly signed bad deals with China to bail out a graft-plagued State Investment Fund and bankroll his continuing grip on power.”
Quoting Mahathir Mohamad, the NYT said:
“It’s all about borrowing too much money, which we cannot afford and cannot repay because we don’t need these projects in Malaysia.”
He had earlier suspended the projects, leading some analysts to believe he wanted to renegotiate the terms during his China trip. Instead, he announced that the deals were off, for now, wrote NYT.
This is quite a contrast to how the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe leadership handled the Rajapaksa-China projects they vowed would be scrapped when voted to power.
Hambantota Port deal was renegotiated and left with the Chinese for 99 years, as good as lifetime ownership.
The controversial Colombo Port City was renegotiated too and now the Chinese company has a 99-year lease there as well, and extended reclaimed land with “law unto themselves”.
Apart from losing jobs to cheap South and South East Asian labour, we are also getting socio-culturally entrenched with South East Asian ethnic labour and more with Chinese and Indian labour on long-term projects allowed to bring their own men.
This, in contrast to Mahathir Mohamad’s vision for the future that seeks to have a “people-centred” regulated economy, is one that is being opened up more and more, leaving all decisions to foreign investors; what to invest on and manufacture for big profits, where to invest on, from where the labour is and at what wage and working conditions, for profits they decide. Thus this is a free market economy that does not give us space and opportunity to define our own destiny.
We have thus not learnt during the 40 years since we opened up our economy, that our economy should be geared for the South Asian market and not to the global market the “fly by night” investors produce to earn big profits for themselves.
With India next door having many economically growing Federal States like Tamil Nadu and SAARC as a regional collective, regional affiliations can be our pedestal for growth, economically and culturally.
It is time we start discussing Sri Lanka within “South Asian Development” with mechanisms to safeguard human rights, a functional regional democracy and a regional economy that can collectively benefit SAARC countries.
