If someone were to steal Rs. 1,000 belonging to the State, that person would have to face the consequences of that action in terms of the law. Similarly, if someone were to aid and abet in the act of stealing Rs. 1,000 from the State, that too would constitute an offence and is punishable by law. The law is also very specific about damage caused to public property, which constitutes a crime and is an offence punishable by law.
If national wealth is construed as public property, what happens when losses are caused to the State as a result of political decision making? Whether one steals, causes damage to public property, or causes the State to lose money due to a political decision, at the end of the day, it is the people who have to pocket out the loss. Funnily enough, it so happens that while a man is punished for stealing Rs. 1,000, no action is warranted for a loss of Rs. 1 billion incurred by the State due to political bungling.
Ad hoc policy making is nothing new to this country. It so happens that whatever policy one government puts in place is reversed by the next and vice versa. It is this circus that has gone on for the past seven decades or so, resulting in the country taking one step forward and two steps back every few years. The next time there is a change of government, the policies of the present regime will also be reversed as already placed on record by the collective Opposition. Once the people cast their vote and elect a government of their choice, they have no further role to play than sit by and watch the political carnage being unleashed by those they elected.
Theories abound these days on the hows and whys of Sri Lanka’s present economic predicament. Theories apart, the main reason for this state of affairs could be attributed to the absence of anything resembling an accountability mechanism for its decision makers who have free passage to make all the blunders under the sun, resulting in billions of precious rupees being flushed down the drain and, in the end, be answerable to no one for losses caused.
Take for example the agriculture policy of the present regime, which the Opposition has vowed to reverse if and when it is elected. Already the Government has announced that an allocation of Rs. 40 billion has been made to pay compensation to farmers who have suffered a drop in output due to the switch to organic fertiliser. In addition, Rs. 1.4 billion has been paid to a Chinese fertiliser company whose stock was rejected and is yet to supply a new stock. Then an undisclosed amount has been spent on importing liquid nano fertiliser from India, which in the end has proved to be disastrous with no improvement in crop yields. On the flip side, export revenue from agri crops is estimated to have declined by 24%, while hard-to-come-by forex is being spent on the importation of rice and vegetables to make up for the production shortfall. In short, it is one gigantic mess for which no one is willing to accept blame.
The saga taking place at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) these days is another disaster in the making. Overstaffed to the rafters with political henchmen, headed by a political appointee as chairman, it is in charge of providing fuel to the nation alongside one private operator, the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC). While the CPC is running at a dizzying loss and is short of funds to import critical fuel stocks, its competitor posted a handsome profit of Rs. 890 million just for the month of December last year and its stock is trading at fair value on the Colombo Stock Exchange. How is it that the contrast could be so stark despite the CPC having a distinct advantage in terms of assets and infrastructure in place?
The same applies to the multitude of other State-owned and controlled entities numbering a staggering 550 or so, of which barely 10% are running at a profit. We have come to a stage where the daily newspaper headlines are all about whether there is to be a power cut or not, whether fuel will be available at the retailers, whether water will be on tap, whether a fuel ship will call over at the port, whether cooking gas will be available, whether the cylinders will continue to cause explosions of cookers, whether rice will be available, and so on, with no one willing to accept responsibility for the dismal state of affairs.
Sri Lanka’s road to bankruptcy is paved with the bungling of its political leaders who for 70-odd years have collectively milked the general treasury to its bone and now find themselves clutching at straws to save it from going down. Whether the life support currently being cobbled up will be enough to keep it going for a while longer or whether the final rites will have to be performed with the official declaration of bankruptcy only time will tell, but one thing it has shown the people of this country – and rather embarrassingly the rest of the world as well – is the sheer incompetence of those who have ruled this country in the last couple of decades.
With the end of the war, Sri Lanka had everything going in its favour, with a booming tourism industry, investments flowing in, and everything a country could wish for just waiting to happen. With the good times rolling in came the greed for greater power and with it the inevitable erosion of democracy. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sri Lanka’s failure to look ahead and its penchant for living beyond its means have now come to bite it where it hurts and the failure to up its game when everyone around it was doing so is now becoming apparent in more ways than one, with the country being ridiculed on international fora as an example of how not to do things. The situation Sri Lanka finds itself in these days comes as no surprise for a country that has never given much thought to the importance of establishing a meritocracy.
Sri Lanka’s biggest impediment to growth has been the quality of its political leadership. In the post-independence period, it was deemed not necessary to specify minimum qualifications in order to enter the Parliament as the calibre of those who came forward to represent the people often had an academic background and the motivation to come forward was to genuinely serve the people. Until recently, the only requirements to be a Member of Parliament was to be above 18 years of age and be a Sri Lankan national. With the passage of the 20th Amendment, that too was changed to enable a dual citizen to enter the Parliament.
While the entry criteria for all Government jobs starting from the position of peon have changed with the times, where minimum educational qualifications have consistently been raised with the passage of time, no such thing has applied to politicians. As a result, save for a few, the majority of those who venture on the political path nowadays are those without a proper education. The tectonic shift in the ‘service’ mentality from others to themselves is often attributed to the change in the electoral system from direct representation to Proportional Representation (PR).
While PR has its merits, enabling reasonable representation for minority communities, it has also opened the floodgates for those unsuitable for public office to creep in. It also provides a lifeline to defeated candidates to crawl back through the allocation of 25 National seats which are theoretically reserved for professionals to enter the Parliament, but, as recent history has shown, that has never been the case. Therefore, the slide to bankruptcy can only be halted by eliminating the intellectual bankruptcy of the country’s political representation.
The slide to bankruptcy
30 Jan 2022
The slide to bankruptcy
30 Jan 2022
If someone were to steal Rs. 1,000 belonging to the State, that person would have to face the consequences of that action in terms of the law. Similarly, if someone were to aid and abet in the act of stealing Rs. 1,000 from the State, that too would constitute an offence and is punishable by law. The law is also very specific about damage caused to public property, which constitutes a crime and is an offence punishable by law.
If national wealth is construed as public property, what happens when losses are caused to the State as a result of political decision making? Whether one steals, causes damage to public property, or causes the State to lose money due to a political decision, at the end of the day, it is the people who have to pocket out the loss. Funnily enough, it so happens that while a man is punished for stealing Rs. 1,000, no action is warranted for a loss of Rs. 1 billion incurred by the State due to political bungling.
Ad hoc policy making is nothing new to this country. It so happens that whatever policy one government puts in place is reversed by the next and vice versa. It is this circus that has gone on for the past seven decades or so, resulting in the country taking one step forward and two steps back every few years. The next time there is a change of government, the policies of the present regime will also be reversed as already placed on record by the collective Opposition. Once the people cast their vote and elect a government of their choice, they have no further role to play than sit by and watch the political carnage being unleashed by those they elected.
Theories abound these days on the hows and whys of Sri Lanka’s present economic predicament. Theories apart, the main reason for this state of affairs could be attributed to the absence of anything resembling an accountability mechanism for its decision makers who have free passage to make all the blunders under the sun, resulting in billions of precious rupees being flushed down the drain and, in the end, be answerable to no one for losses caused.
Take for example the agriculture policy of the present regime, which the Opposition has vowed to reverse if and when it is elected. Already the Government has announced that an allocation of Rs. 40 billion has been made to pay compensation to farmers who have suffered a drop in output due to the switch to organic fertiliser. In addition, Rs. 1.4 billion has been paid to a Chinese fertiliser company whose stock was rejected and is yet to supply a new stock. Then an undisclosed amount has been spent on importing liquid nano fertiliser from India, which in the end has proved to be disastrous with no improvement in crop yields. On the flip side, export revenue from agri crops is estimated to have declined by 24%, while hard-to-come-by forex is being spent on the importation of rice and vegetables to make up for the production shortfall. In short, it is one gigantic mess for which no one is willing to accept blame.
The saga taking place at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) these days is another disaster in the making. Overstaffed to the rafters with political henchmen, headed by a political appointee as chairman, it is in charge of providing fuel to the nation alongside one private operator, the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC). While the CPC is running at a dizzying loss and is short of funds to import critical fuel stocks, its competitor posted a handsome profit of Rs. 890 million just for the month of December last year and its stock is trading at fair value on the Colombo Stock Exchange. How is it that the contrast could be so stark despite the CPC having a distinct advantage in terms of assets and infrastructure in place?
The same applies to the multitude of other State-owned and controlled entities numbering a staggering 550 or so, of which barely 10% are running at a profit. We have come to a stage where the daily newspaper headlines are all about whether there is to be a power cut or not, whether fuel will be available at the retailers, whether water will be on tap, whether a fuel ship will call over at the port, whether cooking gas will be available, whether the cylinders will continue to cause explosions of cookers, whether rice will be available, and so on, with no one willing to accept responsibility for the dismal state of affairs.
Sri Lanka’s road to bankruptcy is paved with the bungling of its political leaders who for 70-odd years have collectively milked the general treasury to its bone and now find themselves clutching at straws to save it from going down. Whether the life support currently being cobbled up will be enough to keep it going for a while longer or whether the final rites will have to be performed with the official declaration of bankruptcy only time will tell, but one thing it has shown the people of this country – and rather embarrassingly the rest of the world as well – is the sheer incompetence of those who have ruled this country in the last couple of decades.
With the end of the war, Sri Lanka had everything going in its favour, with a booming tourism industry, investments flowing in, and everything a country could wish for just waiting to happen. With the good times rolling in came the greed for greater power and with it the inevitable erosion of democracy. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sri Lanka’s failure to look ahead and its penchant for living beyond its means have now come to bite it where it hurts and the failure to up its game when everyone around it was doing so is now becoming apparent in more ways than one, with the country being ridiculed on international fora as an example of how not to do things. The situation Sri Lanka finds itself in these days comes as no surprise for a country that has never given much thought to the importance of establishing a meritocracy.
Sri Lanka’s biggest impediment to growth has been the quality of its political leadership. In the post-independence period, it was deemed not necessary to specify minimum qualifications in order to enter the Parliament as the calibre of those who came forward to represent the people often had an academic background and the motivation to come forward was to genuinely serve the people. Until recently, the only requirements to be a Member of Parliament was to be above 18 years of age and be a Sri Lankan national. With the passage of the 20th Amendment, that too was changed to enable a dual citizen to enter the Parliament.
While the entry criteria for all Government jobs starting from the position of peon have changed with the times, where minimum educational qualifications have consistently been raised with the passage of time, no such thing has applied to politicians. As a result, save for a few, the majority of those who venture on the political path nowadays are those without a proper education. The tectonic shift in the ‘service’ mentality from others to themselves is often attributed to the change in the electoral system from direct representation to Proportional Representation (PR).
While PR has its merits, enabling reasonable representation for minority communities, it has also opened the floodgates for those unsuitable for public office to creep in. It also provides a lifeline to defeated candidates to crawl back through the allocation of 25 National seats which are theoretically reserved for professionals to enter the Parliament, but, as recent history has shown, that has never been the case. Therefore, the slide to bankruptcy can only be halted by eliminating the intellectual bankruptcy of the country’s political representation.
Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!