Economic Sterility Of The UNFGG
Sumanasiri Liyanage
In good old days, debates in the Sri Lankan Parliament were rich not with nonsense, banality and filth but with substantive arguments, creative vision and humor. Also it is interesting to note that the debates were dominated by the left leaders. Speaking at the Budget debate in the late 1960s, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, Pieter Keuneman, said that this budget and the policies of the UNP government had demonstrated clearly its “economic sterility, political impotency and administrative incapacity”. In this column, I argue focusing more on the economic management that this description is more valid in portraying the policies and the performance of the government of the January 8 coalition than that of the UNP government of Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake. It is interesting to note that Comrade Pieter Keuneman did not talk about corrupt practices of the Dudley Senanayake’s government as widespread corruption was not a phenomenon in pre 1977 UNP governments. Had a day time robbery like what had happened recently at the Central Bankof Sri Lanka occurred under his rule Dudley Senanayake would have resigned immediately from the post of PM. Of course, it is hard to expect that kind of moral behavior from the politicians in this neo-liberal phase.
Let me come to my main argument. The statements by the spokesperson of the January 8 coalition who were later responsible for economic management had demonstrated without any doubt that they were clueless on the issues and had not possessed a clear strategy for economic development of the country. Prior to the Presidential election, I wrote in this column about this sterility of development thinking in Maitripala Sirisena’s election program. This was what I wrote: “Champika Ranawaka has a formula and Candidate Sirisena has just copied it in verbatim in his manifesto. This formula has a close affinity with Narendra Modi’s program. Whether the economists of Modi government believes it or not, Modi gave a lot of publicity to the idea that bringing black money deposited in foreign banks would give substantial impetus to the economy.” Candidate Sirisena proposes: “By stopping mega corruption and wastage alone I will act to provide the country with development ten times that of the last six years and provide relief to the people”. Anybody who knows ABC of economics or one with just common sense may not accept this theory even though one assumes that corruption and waste are substantial. Modiconomics is not working in India, so will be the Sirisenomics.’ The UNP spokesperson, Eran Wickramathne also reiterated the same logic of finding necessary capital for development by eliminating waste and corruption.