A Rudderless Government
Featured image courtesy Colombo Gazette
Almost 15 months under the present Sirisena-Wickremesinghe rule, the economy is in no good state. Defeating Rajapaksa at the 2015 January 08 presidential polls was not meant to merely abolish the Executive Presidency (which wasn’t done) but also to lift the country out of the economic abyss. In the Maithripala Sirisena manifesto for the presidential elections, he therefore promisedI will put right development priorities that are now upside down. I will suspend all wasteful expenses and establish a National Economic Planning Council comprising learned personnel, who would act not on pecuniary considerations but out of love for the country…. [; No.2 Development Economy – page / 20]
While that is yet to see daylight, the economy during the Rajapaksa era wasn’t limp, though it certainly needed serious repair despite Rajapaksa bragging and propping up by China. A lopsided economy, it nevertheless had heavy infrastructure projects running with huge Chinese funding and was also pepped up by India, Russia and Iran. This economy was providing space for a new middle class to emerge, especially in an increasingly urbanised Colombo centric society. The rest of the society, the majority, was undoubtedly left behind. But there were no accusations the economy was in shambles or collapsing. Mega corruption and massive frauds were however accepted as the norm, at every level in society.
Those advocates for “change” who backed Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena wished to call the ousting of Rajapaksa the “Rainbow Revolution”. Stepping into the 15th month after the “Rainbow Revolution”, the Sri Lankan economy is identified as a collapsing economy. On March 03 this year (2015) the Island newspaper had a write up by a Special Correspondent titled “Government should get its act together to avert economic collapse”. The caption itself was very revealing. The article said, “The Fitch Rating Agency has stated that the 2016 Budget has done little to address government revenue concerns and predicted continued fiscal slippage over 2016 and 2017. It explained that Sri Lanka’s government debt has increased to more than 75 percent of GDP by end 2015 up from 71 percent at the end of 2014.“(emphasis added). Put in a nutshell what it means is, this “Yahapalana” leadership had completely failed in managing the economy. During the whole of 2015 when the 100 Day program was released and then with a compromised government in power, this “Rainbow Revolution” wasn’t able to manage the economy, having got its “Interim Budget” adopted in February 2015.
