People expect government to deliver, not excuses

Parliamentary election which had been postponed twice due to issues related to the spread of COVID-19 in the country, is over and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) along with its friendly parties has swept the electorate with two thirds majority in Parliament. Now it is time to look ahead without wasting time on celebrations.   

The first and foremost duty of the new government would be to resuscitate the economy which is in a very bad shape. However, the government did not present a plan or programme in this regard before the Presidential election or the general election. Now it has been an imperative task and a challenge before the government. 

 
There is no point in blaming the previous government - as it had been customary to all past governments - for the economic woes faced by the people, since the masses are fed-up with those allegations which were repeated on every platform during the election campaign. On the other hand, those allegations cannot be any excuse for the government’s future failures, if any, as it is to rectify the situation and develop the country that the new government took office. It must be recalled that the last government attempted to cover-up its failures on the economic front with allegations against the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa government, but people rejected them within two and-a-half years, at the local government elections held in February, 2018. People expect the government to deliver, not excuses.   

Even before the dissolution of Parliament on March 2, the government on February 20 attempted to increase the borrowing limit of the Vote on Account that had been passed in Parliament on October 23 last year for the first four months of this year, by Rs.757 billion. However, it had to withdraw the motion as the Opposition which then had the majority power in Parliament opposed it. November 27, last year the government apparently having the forthcoming Parliamentary election in mind announced a plethora of tax concessions. The immediate loss of revenue to the government from these tax cuts was estimated to be in the range between Rs. 650 billion and Rs. 680 billion which amounts to a third of the government revenue.   
Then the damage that has done by spread of coronavirus in the country as well as in other countries was enormous. Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters Association said in March that the country’s apparel industry was expecting to lose 1.5 billion US dollars worth of revenue between March and June, as a result of the virus threat. According to another report the World Bank had projected that “remittances received by Sri Lanka will drop by 19% in 2020, due to the global crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and declining oil prices.”   

These are not mere statistics. These figures will definitely reflect in the real lives of the people and they in turn would have no option other than turning towards the government. Moreover, experts always warn of another wave of COVID-19 as the pandemic still hounding even the so-called developed countries. Therefore, the economic burden on the government is colossal and it is a great challenge for it to overcome.   

The previous Mahinda Rajapaksa government was also reelected in 2010 with a near two thirds majority (144 seats) in Parliament, buoyed by the huge euphoria over the historic victory in the thirty year-long war against the LTTE. However, it must be recalled that the failures in the economic front resulted in the government losing the provincial council election in the Uva province within four years which became a trend setter at the subsequent Presidential and general elections. Generally, it is the economic issues that had been attributed to the regime changes since the Independence of the country. Therefore, to be sensitive to the economic needs of the people including the future generations is not only the responsibility of the government but also imperative for the very survival of it.