When the rains fail, the damage does not check whether a Ministry has the mandate to deal with it, and it does not ask whether the person affected holds a formal contract. That is the hard lesson in the latest figures on the dry spell brought on by El Niño, and it is one the Government cannot afford to overlook.
On 10 September, Environment Minister Dr Dammika Patabendi told Parliament that 78,368 people from 25,037 families in seven Districts had lost their livelihoods. The Districts are Monaragala, Badulla, Ratnapura, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara and Anuradhapura. Agriculture bore the heaviest burden, with 12,304 families, or 36,875 people, affected. Livestock farming, plantation work, fishing and self-employment together account for more than 9,000 further families. These are not abstract statistics. Behind every figure is a household that has lost its income, and for many it was the only one they had.
It was against this backdrop that Deputy Labour Minister Mahinda Jayasinghe told The Daily Morning that the Labour Ministry has no mechanism to intervene, since its mandate covers only employment issues in the formal sector. We credit him for his candour, and for noting that the Government is already preparing a programme to assist those affected. Yet candour is not the same as an answer. His statement lays bare a gap in the way the State is organised, one that leaves millions of the country's working people outside the reach of the very Ministry created to protect workers.
That gap is not small. By most estimates, informal work accounts for more than half of all employment in Sri Lanka. The farmer in Monaragala, the fisherman in Batticaloa, the woman who tends two cows in Ampara and the small trader in Anuradhapura all belong to this vast and largely unseen workforce. They have no employer obliged to compensate them, no trade union to speak on their behalf and no provident fund to draw upon. When a factory closes, there are procedures, notices and a Ministry to turn to. When a harvest fails, there is only the moneylender, the pawnbroker or a relative who can spare a loan.
There is a bitter irony here. The informal sector is home to some of the most vulnerable communities in the country, and they are precisely the ones with the least protection. Their earnings are seasonal and tied to the weather. Their savings, where they exist, are thin, and many are still paying off debts taken on during the economic crisis. A drought does not merely cut their income for a season. It can push a family into debt that takes years to clear, pull children out of school and force the sale of the few assets they own.
The Government is right to say a programme is being prepared, but preparation must not become another word for delay. Struggling families cannot wait for the next Cabinet paper or another round of meetings. We urge the authorities to do three things now. First, verify and publish the list of affected families, so that assistance reaches the right households and not merely the best connected. Second, provide immediate relief, whether through cash support, food assistance or help with inputs for the next cultivation season, working through the Divisional Secretariats and Grama Niladhari officers who know these communities. Third, name the Ministry that is accountable for the programme, so that the affected can knock on a door and find someone behind it.
Beyond the immediate response lies a larger question. El Niño will not be the last climate shock to visit this island, and each one will land hardest on those working outside the formal economy. A country that expects more erratic weather cannot keep treating informal workers as an afterthought in labour policy. Whether the answer is a national registry of informal workers, State-backed crop insurance or a standing social protection scheme, Sri Lanka needs a mechanism where today it has none. The Labour Ministry, for its part, should not treat its present mandate as settled. If the rules as they stand do not allow it to act, then the rules deserve a review.
The Deputy Minister is correct that formal-sector jobs have so far been spared. But a livelihood does not become less real because it lacks a payslip. More than 78,000 Sri Lankans are waiting to learn who is responsible for them. The State owes them a clear answer, and soon.