For many people, the most suitable economic policy programmes for the country come closer to the economic philosophy and policy programme of President Ranasinghe Premadasa. Premadasa often took decisions from the point of the poor and wanted to direct ‘have and able’ people to use their luxuries and fortunes to help create situations that generate direct and tangible benefits to the poor and the vulnerable. He never wanted to discourage the capitalists, high income and investing class through exorbitant taxes in the name of revenue based fiscal consolidation. Instead, he struck workable agreements with the high income capitalist and investing class to create productive opportunities and industrial ventures that generate benefits not only for the rich but also for the poor through sustainable jobs and income streams. Some political opponents rated Premadasa as a pro poor or a poor-biased person, and I agree with the view but with an extra note. Premadasa, throughout his political career from Local Councils to the Presidency was pro-poor, poor-biased and poor-centric, and he was for the poor not by way of distributing what the rich had but by way of directing and leading the rich to create opportunities for the poor to find their fortune. 

Premadasa in the present context 

Currently, we have a Marxist Party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), in power, whose members attempted to create a revolutionary Government for an equal and communist system. Keeping the past JVP ideology and its present campaign slogan ‘a rich country – a beautiful life’ at bay, the Government of President Dissanayake is blindly following the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed neo-liberal and (crony) capitalistic economic policies, alienating the poor and the vulnerable from prosperity. Taxing essential goods at historically high rates and passing all costs of inefficiencies, irregularities, malpractices, waste and corruption to the public through price hikes have had a serious burden on the poor. The cost of mishandling the West Asian war and the unpreparedness to the energy crisis have been directly put on the poor, citing IMF directives and under recommendations made by Colombo-based so-called research institutes. The Government does not follow any tangible measures to absorb the effects of the economic crisis and energy crisis to provide some relief measures to the poor and the vulnerable. The IMF measures have tightened the bellies so hard the poor can hardly survive. President Dissanayake who wanted to revamp the IMF agreement earlier is so tame now and follows the same agreement without any changes. The IMF staff including its MD find it easier to work with the JVP Government than any other implementing their policy programme irrespective of how local innocent people feet its consequences. The ‘overflowing treasuries’ of the Government can be used to prove the cruelty of the IMF policy programme and the inability of the JVP Government to make the lives of innocent people better. 

Had Premadasa led the country at the moment, he would be concerned about the IMF led unjustifiable pickpocketting of the wage earners income, about the burden imposed on industries which provide employment for the poor, about the burden imposed on small- and medium- enterprises and micro industries. Premadasa would have been upset to see his Finance Ministry Secretary and Central Bank Governor and officers sharing the responsibility of putting US $  Dollars 2.5 million meant for loan repayment in the hands of hackers. 

With the present macroeconomic situation, it is very unlikely that the Government will be in a position to start repayments of loans by 2028. The economy does not reach the set or targeted growth rate. No additional savings. No real public investments. No foreign investments to meet the domestic shortage. Almost stagnant tourism and worker migration contributions. No rapid export expansions. Thus, gross domestic product (GDP) growth targets fall short of the expectations. With further depreciation of the local currency and escalated import costs due to fuel price hikes, it may not improve the balance of payments position of the country, leaving the fundamentals far from promising. The Dissanayake administration has become a victim of crony capitalism as it has become a prisoner of several business mafias including rice mill owners and Colombo based business tycoons. The Dissanayake administration has failed to follow even the conventional liberal capitalistic market economic policies where the capitalistic class invests their surpluses in further enhancing productivity, creating jobs, contributing to export earnings and finally contributing to the well-being of the poor through trickle down effects. In his time, Premadasa opted for a social democratic policy programme where the rich and capitalistic class was pushed for domestic investment and production for employment generation and productivity enhancement in rural and less advantaged sectors. Even after 18 months since the election as the President of this country, Dissanayake has failed to initiate a local and/or foreign investment drive in order to generate employment and income for better lives for the poor and also to make the national pie (GDP), thus the individual share, bigger.

Factories for villages 

Among many Prime Ministers and several executive Presidents of this country, Premadasa still remains an exception. Some known contributions of former Presidents are: Junius Richard Jayewardene introduced free market policies and various development projects; Percy Mahendra Mahinda Rajapaksa put the end to the 30-year old civil war and war ridden uncertainty of the economy; though not elected by the people Ranil Wickremesinghe mitigated the economic collapse, while Dissanayake is struggling to continue the initiations made by his predecessor forward. As I remember, Premadasa took charge of the economy when the country was burnt by two nasty forces, the JVP led so called-liberation movement and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led separatist war in the North and the East. He had the responsibility of addressing the issues faced by the Sinhalese and Tamil youth and to bring normalcy and peace for the people, with better living standards. This required establishing peace in both communities, and attracting youth for the mainstream economy and the political process. Since the lack of economic opportunities was considered as a main reason for the youth unrest and their involvement in terrorism and social destructive activities, Premadasa wanted to upscale economic opportunities at the rural and grassroot level and opted to bring factories and thus jobs to the village. Jobs at their vicinity and proximity changed the minds of the rural youth to engage in the main social stream. Premadasa approached big businessmen including foreigners and requested them to bring their factories into villages, and the result was locating more than 200 factories in villages, providing thousands of direct and indirect jobs and the use of more village based resources, creating rural development and economic centres. This ‘factories for villages’ concept provided stimulus for the local economy, absorbing the youth labour for productive means. Many factories started under the project are still in operation even though successive Governments failed to provide required facilities for the existence of the factories after Premadasa. I would say that the political hypocrisy of leaders and parties that came to power later did not want them to see the ‘success of Premadasa’s 200 garment factories project’.

Policy reforms 

Another important aspect of the Premadasa regime is the continuation of the economic liberalisation and deregulation process started in 1978. These policy reforms were to ensure competition in various sectors, reduce Government dominance, make trade free, deregulate the investment climate, remove exchange controls and eliminate fixed exchange rate regimes to facilitate trade and investment. The privatisation of public enterprises was continued to minimise the burden on the Government Budget and improve market conditions; and many inefficient public monopolies were turned to competitive market structures through this project enhancing service delivery and outcome. But, these market reforms were abandoned later by successive Governments, especially the Rajapaksa administration and recreated a large public sector by increasing employment and creating many State owned enterprises and public entities. Though the large public sector created now has become a burden to the entire economy, the Dissanayake administration has no vision and practical programme to correct it as done by Premadasa. 

Poverty alleviation and safety nets 

Premadasa is known especially for his pro-poor approach and dedication to the lives of rural and urban marginalised and asset-less communities. His career is as a politician who emerged with the poor and less fortunate people and thus he is better known as ‘the friend of the poor’. Soon after he was sworn as the President, he started the Janasaviya programme to help the poor and asset-less people of society. Even his fellow Cabinet of Ministers members, high ranking Government officers and international funding agencies viewed the programme with scepticism, Premadasa went ahead with it, branding it as a ‘social responsibility’ programme of the ‘people who have and who are able’. When (in 1980s) the IMF and the World Bank had no vision to fund such programmes and support the lives of the poor, and recommended the Governments to slash subsidies and transfers, Premadasa was visionary and had the courage to implement the Janasaviya programme, as the country’s first coordinated and organised poverty alleviation programme which had a survival support component and a productivity enhancement component. During a period where the welfare State was at crossroads under heavy critiques and objections from the local business community, educated upper middle income groups, upper class politicians and public officers and international development agencies, Premadasa went ahead to introduce other helping hand programmes too for the poor and the vulnerable such as the school midday meal programme, nutritional food for pregnant women, support for the disabled and the elderly, etc.

Housing for homeless

The lack of proper housing and sanitary facilities was a major issue in urban shanties and many rural villages. Jayewardene gave his deputy Premadasa a challenging task by assigning the Local Government, Housing and Urban Development Ministry for him in addition to the Premiership. Premadasa used the opportunity to uplift the basic infrastructure and community facilities in urban and rural areas to upgrade the communities. At the same time, he initiated a massive and widely attractive project which targeted providing houses for homeless families. He constructed housing apartments for urban people living in urban shanties and small but attractive houses for rural homeless families. At one stage, Premadasa wanted to build 100,000 houses for the poor and soon the target was upscaled to one million houses. This housing programme was highly attractive to the poor as it made their dreams a reality. The programme tagged as ‘hisata wahalak-hithata nivanak’ (roof for the head-relief for the heart) took the hearts of millions of people and provided shelter for thousands of children who did not have a proper place to dwell. Premadasa’s housing programme was the focus of the 35th meeting of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly held in 1980 on housing needs of the poor and it actually resulted in declaring 1987 as the international year of shelter for the homeless. This UN declaration indicated the merit based nature of Sri Lanka’s housing programme for the poor. Only his son, Sajith Premadasa, when he became the Housing Minister under the 2015 Government, was able to re-introduce the Premadasa housing programme for the poor with new courage and focus. In his manifesto, Dissanayake promised to initiate a new housing development programme during his Election campaign but so far it has not materialised. 

Though the JVP led propaganda mechanism tried to label the 76-year political period since Independence to September 2024 (till Dissanayake become the President) as a curse, a glimpse at Premadasa’s political career and his service and dedication to fellow citizens and the country give evidence against ‘the 76-year curse’. All these evidence suggests that Premadasa, during his short period of Presidency, and his entire political career, has contributed immensely to his fellow citizens and the country in numerous and unforgettable ways. His great interest to inculcate the people’s participation in the development process is one of his main ideological drivers of his success, ‘a tangible development initiative for the people will be carried forward and protected by the same people with great trust and sincerity’.

The writer is attached to the Peradeniya University

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The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication