• Understands economic sensitivity of finances, fiscal adjustments, market variables
• Focus on stability, growth trajectory, new investments, supporting our industries
• Will operate within IMF targets; presenting growth plan and fiscal consolidation plan
• Openly told the IMF that its diagnostic report is what NPP has been also fighting for
• Looking at growth trajectory through processes used in Vietnam, South Korea, India
• Open to invite FDIs without limitations in investment potential, removing bottlenecks
• Comprehensive strategy to transform SOEs while retaining Govt. ownership of key SOEs
• Some SOEs will work as PPPs, some others will be divested; decision based on the SOE

“People will see a difference when compared to the previous Government, where leakages will be blocked, and in terms of expenditure consolidation, which will be a huge component in our government given the enormous amount of wasteful expenditure,” said National People’s Power (NPP) National Executive Committee member and Colombo District candidate Chathuranga Abeysinghe, in an interview with The Sunday Morning, addressing his party’s plans for getting Sri Lanka’s economy back on track. 

Acknowledging that the NPP would operate within the targets given by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he stressed that there would be a comprehensive strategy to transform all State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) while government ownership of SOEs would be retained, saying: “Privatisation of SOEs is not the first option; it’s the last option.”

Adding that the people had ushered in the desired-for change by voting for the NPP, he asserted that the old political culture has already been demolished. “Going forward, we won’t see any self-driven politicians who place self-interest above public interest, at least from the NPP, because we are driven by policy.”

In the course of the interview, expressing confidence in the NPP securing a majority in Parliament at the upcoming elections, Abeysinghe discussed the party’s plans to bring about the much-discussed system change while ensuring economic recovery. 

Following are excerpts: 

Sri Lanka is at an economic crossroads at present with the country still on an economic recovery path. How do you view the country’s economy at present and what’s the level of importance placed by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led NPP on economic recovery?

Firstly, we need to understand why we came to this place. For over four decades, our trade deficit has escalated. We have not collected due taxes, creating a huge fiscal deficit. Then, without a national growth plan, we consumed huge amounts of foreign debt, including International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) which were taken at 7% interest. After the 2022 collapse, the country is now in a recovery phase, and we really understand the sensitivity of the economy in terms of finances, fiscal adjustments, and market variables. 

Currently, our focus is to stabilise the country further, to ensure that we move fast on the bond structuring, get the credit rating for Sri Lanka as soon as possible, and achieve speedy fiscal consolidation for next year, in order to ensure that we increase our revenues by minimising leakages, while simultaneously providing the agreed benefits to the citizens and industries.

From a monetary perspective, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) is already doing a proper job in managing the interest rate, inflation, and exchange rates. We would work collaboratively with the Central Bank on this as it is now an independent organisation. 

The first year itself, we will focus mostly on stability, while we will work on the growth trajectory in parallel, inviting new investments and also supporting our industries, especially the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) sector.

You and your party, the NPP, have been critical of the actions of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Government in relation to the economic recovery programme. What alternative solutions would you and your party propose to get the economy back on track?

The reason we were so critical about the economic reforms was because they were mainly looking at one aspect of the economy, which was to stabilise a few indicators like inflation and the fiscal deficit. But they never looked at the repercussions of such a contraction of the economy.

The alternative is to find alternative ways of revenue collection rather than collecting taxes from the people who already pay and also to support the SME sector, so that our production and consumption in the local economy improves, rather than trying to control inflation through contractory means.

While operating within the framework of the IMF stability programme, we would still be aiming for a 15% revenue as compared to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a 2.3% positive balance in the primary account, and a debt servicing threshold of 13%. We will be presenting a growth plan and a fiscal consolidation plan for the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme within that framework.

People will see a difference when compared to the previous Government, where leakages will be blocked, and in terms of expenditure consolidation, which will be a huge component in our government given the enormous amount of wasteful expenditure. There will also be expenditure prioritisation, which you will see in the upcoming budget we will present in the first quarter of 2025.

Can the NPP deliver on the promises made on increasing welfare measures and reducing cost of living and taxes while developing the economy to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)?

FDI for manufacturing and improving local competition will support us in bringing down the cost of essentials. But when it comes to the benefits we have proposed, these are for the community that fell below the poverty line during the crisis.

We can’t progress when children are going without meals or when people lack access to healthcare. Accordingly, the amount we are going to spend on welfare has been carefully sorted out in the budget. We are aware of the losses, which amount to about Rs. 180 billion per year, which we need to figure out from the reduction of other expenditures and increase in revenue. 

The development process will also include productivity improvement and market efficiency, which in turn will support some of the essential goods and services, such as rice, healthcare items, medicine, etc. The benefits will pass to the public through an efficient market process.

Do you feel that Sri Lanka, by making changes to the ongoing IMF programme, could build its economy to a level where it could commence repaying its debts by 2028 as currently agreed upon?

The IMF programme is a structure that has been given for us to be disciplined as an economy; it doesn’t have anything to do with the growth trajectory. The growth trajectory we will be implementing is a growth process that was used by Vietnam, South Korea, and India.

There will be growth targets agreed upon by the private sector and public sector for the country – for various industries, productivity targets, and exports targets. For that, the Government will be a very strong facilitator of industry. 

Currently industries are not facilitated in any form, even in terms of administrative work or in the form of providing lower cost energy, transportation, capital, or technology. They are also not being supported in their ability to expand into other markets. The Government will therefore play a pivotal role in these areas with this new economic transformation based on pushing our industries to be global. 

We are very open to inviting FDIs without limitations in terms of investment potential, to support us on the capital, technological, and market access requirements. The existing bottlenecks for local or foreign businesses to operate in Sri Lanka will be removed through a robust professional process, which will be transparent and technology-driven as well, so that businesses will be supported to achieve the expected growth of 6.5% above the GDP growth rate.

Anti-corruption has been one of the NPP’s main campaign slogans. Do you and the NPP subscribe to the IMF-Sri Lanka agreement on introducing anti-corruption/transparency measures into law? How will the NPP continue this mechanism?

We very clearly and openly told the IMF that its diagnostic report is what we have also been fighting for. Therefore, most of these reforms will be implemented by this Government to strengthen the process, bring more transparency, and improve governance. 

We are now even pushing the bondholders also to be part of this change in introducing governance-related bonds as opposed to GDP-based Macro-Linked Bonds (MLBs). This is a good place to be, where the international community and the donor agencies are also pushing for transformation. 

We are a party which has been fighting for this for over a decade and we are very open to these reforms, as well as to improving them further to ensure that there is zero tolerance for corruption. 

Currently, the obstacle to eliminating corruption is about data and the lack of transparent processes. We also need to strengthen the legal system with more resources to fast track the cases that have been filed with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Attorney General’s Department, and even at the Judiciary level. What we are ensuring is that the political sphere will not interfere with the process. 

To end corruption, we are banking on technology, which is why we are putting a lot of effort into technological transformation, where the digital processes which reduce citizen and industry interaction with Government officials is the only way to fix this. While we will work on holding people accountable for what has happened, going forward our focus will be on technological platforms where transparency is high, so that we can avoid future instances of mismanagement. 

In this regard, we are building a different structure for technology transformation, called a transformation office, which will be headed by Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, considered as the guru for tech transformation in the country. He will be supported by a few more similarly capable people and this will initially focus on critical areas like inland revenue, customs, land registry, vehicle registration, and healthcare. These will be our priority projects. 

Apart from that, the digital ID is a must for us to go forward and with that platform being established, there will be more digital projects starting in parallel within the State sector. It will take a long time for transformation, but we will start with ones which are critical. 

What of the need to reform loss-making SOEs to prevent further burdening of the State coffers? The NPP has so far held back the SOE reforms programme initiated under the IMF programme. What approach will the NPP take in this regard?

Currently we don’t have loss-making entities, because after price adjustments last year, the combined gain for the fiscal budget was a Rs. 330 billion profit. But there are vulnerable institutions like the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), and SriLankan Airlines, which were among the biggest contributors to these losses historically. 

We will restructure all these organisations with the right management and ensure that processes are in place so they won’t be derailed going forward. There will be a comprehensive strategy to transform all SOEs; whether they make a profit or not, we need to make them more efficient and fit for purpose. 

Some of them will have Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and some will be divested, but the NPP has a very clear strategy on energy, transportation, telecommunication, and banking – government ownership will not be let go of. The transformation project is in play. Restructuring is a must and in terms of letting go of ownership, we will decide based on each SOE. 

The IMF programme never gave recommendations on restructuring. It said restructuring was needed but people have a view that the IMF said that we need to privatise. This was a myth propagated by a particular set of neoliberal think tanks over the last one-and-a-half years. We will educate people that it’s about restructuring. What the IMF said is to cut the losses to the Treasury, which we will do. 

Also, in terms of Government ownership of SOEs, we are very keen; the Government has to play a pivotal role in competition to ensure our industrialisation targets are met. This has been done in all fast-growing countries, such as India, South Korea, Vietnam, and China, and even the US and the UK, which held onto their SOEs when they were supporting the growth of their industries. 

Accordingly, the IMF programme has very clearly given us a few targets and we will be within these targets. Privatisation of SOEs is not the first option; it’s the last option. 

Your constituency, the Colombo District has widespread poverty and many issues related to planned and unplanned urbanisation, congestion, etc. If elected as a representative of Colombo, how do you plan to address these issues?

Colombo has the highest contribution to the GDP, while at the same time it has all the problems that you could imagine, especially unplanned urbanisation, which is the biggest problem. Urban development planning has been very weak – often the plans are there but not adhered to when approving development projects. 

We are looking at a citizen-centric growth plan or urbanisation plan, where we will ensure that the living rights of citizens as well as environmental needs are well taken care of in future developments. But currently we have a land area which is very weak in its drainage systems, transportation, and living standards. 

We will find alternative or short-term strategies to improve the livelihoods of the people. However, going forward, we want to adhere to a strong long-term development plan, perhaps of 50 or 100 years, so that regional sustainability goals are met and people have a better lifestyle while we support growth. 

We also need to see how we can push congestion out of Colombo. As much as we need to develop Colombo to become greater, there is also a need for other areas to benefit from the growth potential. As such, there will be significant transformations in transportation especially, as well as industrialisation and the network of business creation that we will push out of Colombo City as much as possible. 

We will also work hard on climate issues and environmental changes. Colombo gets flooded three times per year, when previously it was about once in five years. These are big problems which need structural changes upstream, since you can’t fix certain things downstream. We do have a view on what to change, but we have to figure out how to change them. 

With regard to underserved areas, urbanisation never took into account their livelihoods. They were moved from where they lived and they now have to live in skyscrapers with no facilities. Our strategy is to have a public-centric growth plan where the public will be allowed to live in the vicinity in apartments of about 8-12 storeys maximum, so that they have access to the ground and to their community. 

Apart from that, the biggest current issue is drugs. All these boil down to poverty, making children vulnerable to drugs and other issues. We will focus heavily on education – early childhood education and primary education, leading up to career programmes so that at least the next generation will be taken out of this misery. 

As a young politician, what changes would you want to bring into parliamentary politics to bring about the system change being talked of by the youth?

I think people have brought in that change by voting for the NPP. Going forward, we won’t see any self-driven politicians who place self-interest above public interest, at least from the NPP, because we are driven by policy. 

We are a team that believes in a particular end result, having volunteered and sacrificed for many years. Most of us have been activists who have been fighting for various rights of citizens, who will be in Parliament going forward. The old political culture has already been demolished. 

It’s up to us to live up to the expectations, as much as the new political regime or the team can live up to the standards that we have already set and have said that we would follow. If we can keep the ‘Aragalaya’ running in society, I would advocate the citizens being part of governance and being open in social media and activism spaces, so that we listen to the people and the government makes decisions which are consultative, ensuring that the culture that we want will be sustained for a longer period of time. 

Personally, I also believe in technology. I think technology can make a lot of changes to industries as well as in contributing towards helping end corruption and putting a proper system in place, where politicians play the role of making laws and processes to improve citizens’ lives while the State sector runs the country. 

We are going to stop the traditional way of politicians running the country and have the Government service running the country instead, while politicians play the gap-fulfilling role of creating laws. 

These are the two things I will fight for; this is the change I want to bring. 

How confident are you of the NPP securing a majority in Parliament and you winning at the upcoming polls?

Firstly, the people gave a very strong mandate for the President with a 42% vote base. We are now understanding why some people did not vote, because at this point in the campaign I am meeting more and more people who did not vote for the NPP. This was mainly due to the fear that was created by other parties that we are violent, that we would take over assets of people or burn down the Opposition. 

There were also fears that we don’t know anything about the economy, that we don’t know how to handle the IMF, and that we don’t know how to handle foreign delegations. I think we have proven them wrong within a month. This fear mongering over the last six to eight months by very educated professionals has been proven untrue.

We are seeing that a lot of people who voted for former President Wickremesinghe and people who thought Sajith Premadasa had a team, which he doesn’t have anymore, will vote for the NPP. We are seeing a very strong majority vote coming our way. 

As an individual, I’ve done my part in bringing this change for the last five years. I am bringing technology and industrial expertise and have been part of the industrial development policy for the NPP, making several inputs to the economic policy. 

I think people will look at me as an option, while we also have other candidates who are equally good, equally committed, and equally passionate about making a change. Personally, I feel that I will have the opportunity to deliver within the next five years.