If not for the severity of the COVID 19 pandemic which has been threatening Sri Lankans as well as people in other countries with death, there could have sometimes been country wide demonstrations in Sri Lanka against the spiraling cost of living. The fear of pandemic related death which is being over and over again being reminded to the people every night by the electronic media with graphic details of ever surging number of people infected with the coronavirus and the deaths due to the pandemic.
It has so overwhelmed the country that people are enduring with the unprecedented price hikes of essential items like rice, sugar and vegetable, without making a murmur in public. It is clear that the people do not believe in the statements made by the leaders of the government attributing the surge in the price hikes to various reasons like the pandemic and related issues.
People are hit with a double whammy against the backdrop of the deadly pandemic as the prices are skyrocketing at a time when their income is also badly hit. The revenue of almost all - from the billionaires except for a few who have turned the pandemic into a windfall to the beggars – has unprecedentedly and drastically dropped. Overtime hours in the public sector has been slashed, many private sector institutions have trimmed the number of their workforce while some others have pruned the salaries of their employees by 50% in some cases and farmers are severely hit by the fertilizer ban and the collapse of the marketing mechanism for their harvest. The occasional lockdowns, curfews, and other travel restrictions have threatened the businesses – big or small – as well as the survival of the self-employees, daily wage earners, and those engaged in odd-jobs.
Although the current cost of living issue does not make headlines regularly as the people as well as the media are totally obsessed with the statistics of vaccination against COVID 19, surging number of infection of coronavirus and related deaths, it is a fact that is fast eroding the credibility and popularity of the government and its leaders, without making a fuss. No amount of attribution to it seems to be able to bolster the public image of the government.
The price of a kilo of some popular varieties of rice which was less than Rs.100 a year ago is now around Rs. 200, (above Rs. 200 in most cases). Sugar price has gone from Rs. 90 to Rs. 220 within a period of about nine months, throwing the government gazette notifications on fixed prices into the trash bin. Farmers and the consumers of vegetable are being exploited by the middlemen who earn four to fivefold income within a day compared to the farmers who toil two to four months to produce the same amount of harvest. Rarely could an ordinary consumer buy 250 grams of any vegetable below the price of Rs. 50.
Statements by the relevant ministers on the situation have proven to be mere rhetoric. It was a few months ago that Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage very confidently declared that the state institutions would purchase vegetable directly from the farmers and distribute through state owned outlets such as the CWE in order to prevent the exploitation of the farmers and the consumers by what he called by the middlemen mafia. The country did not hear about him after that even during which time the middlemen have been in action at full throttle.
There are issues which are beyond the control of the government when it comes to cost of living, such as the stability of the rupee and the foreign reserves. However, it is the mere failure in governance and market management that have led to the rocketing of the rice and sugar prices. In spite of the leaders of the government accusing the hoarders for the price hike of these two items, Opposition parties strongly suspect of connivance by a section of the government behind it, especially, the incredible sugar price increase.
The government unnecessarily reduced the duty for a kilo of sugar from Rs. 50 to 25 cents in November last year. The JVP alleged that this was done while a huge consignment of thousands of metric tonnes of sugar was on the way to the harbor. And then the government fixed the sugar price at Rs. 85 a kg by a gazette which was ignored by the trades who sold sugar at Rs. 120 a kg. Then the government withdrew that gazette in April and the sugar which was meant to be sold at Rs. 85 is now being sold at Rs. 220, with more than Rs. 140 profit a kg. SJB on Sunday charged that the traders, who they claim are cronies of the government, have earned more than 50 billion rupees after this duty reduction.
Free market economy does not mean that the government totally loses the control of the market. In a country like Sri Lanka, if the government totally loses the control of the market, it will heavily impact first on the people, especially the poor and then on the very survival of the government, sometimes through social unrest.
