Premier to issue national policy statement next month

6 October 2015 03:16 am

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be issuing a national policy statement at the onset of November, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.

“In the first week of November, the Prime Minister will give the first policy statement to outline where the future of this country will go,” he said.
Karunanayake said the policies would have inputs of both the Prime Minister and President Maithripala Sirisena.

Apex bodies across the economy have been calling on the government to deploy national policies, which have not been present in the country for decades.

Many representatives have said that the past regimes have ignored the call for such policies and the policy papers which were forwarded, and have urged the new regime to enact comprehensive national policies with wide stakeholder engagement. The economy was run in an ad hoc manner in the past. Policies among different sectors or in that case even within one sector clashed. Further, a change of government, or a change of ministers within one government, ensured a change of bureaucrats in each ministry, which were run based on sitting ministers’ preference instead of a national standard.

It remains to be seen whether the policy statement by the Prime Minister would be basic or comprehensive, as most ministers have only now begun to ask the industry to forward their suggestions on making national policies.