Archives

by D. Wijesinghe

I have read with interest the article by Dr. B. S. Wijeweera on "Budget deficits, expanding bureaucracy and increasing entrophy, appearing in the Daily News of 29th March 2002. In his article he has emphatically stated that continued divestiture or privatisation is no solution to our problem, but on the other hand he has stressed the fact that if we are to get on to the correct approach then we will have to bring about stringent measures and ensure that total mismanagement of economy should come to an end.

The colossal wastage of funds should be drastically, cut and all citizens in the country irrespective of colour, creed, race or politics should realise that we are in an endeavour to re-build this country which has been devastated as a result of short sighted and blind policies coupled with inefficiency that prevailed over the last 50 years. The Finance Minister and government should have the strong will and ability to drive in to the blood stream of every citizen in this country that we mean real business and the future of Sri Lanka belongs to 20 million people of this gem of an island. This is an extremely difficult task, but sincerity and dedication as stated by Dr. Wijeweera should bring it within our reach.

I am not an economist, and nor I am an accountant, but I have very closely followed certain principles of financing, and I am of firm view that we should follow very tight policies of financing and a close tab on expenditure is equally important. In short, my view is that a Finance Minister's job is a 365 day one and not one merely restricted to the budget and perhaps 3 months prior to it. In my humble opinion if a Finance Minister is to present a very successful budget from day one of the last budget he must sit with his next budget. How is he going to do this? He has to make a detailed analysis of the approved budget Ministry by Ministry, if it is Dept. by Dept. and get set for the next budget it will bring better results.

He should not leave the officials to do the work of the initial stages of the budget. A comparison of the approved budget and figures of the impending budget of each Dept will help to evaluate the actual funds needed to each Dept. He should make a very close study on recurrent expenditure and the new proposals for capital development. In my opinion this is dedication.

Dr. Wijeweera has sighted a case of a head of a dept travelling by bus from Ratmalana in the past. This is not anything strange quite a number of top public servants travelled by bus to my knowledge. I know of an instance where a Head of Dept. travelled with his fellow workers in the same bus from Narahenpita to Cinnamon Gardens. It is pertinent to state here what I happened to see in Netherlands in the year 2000. This is a country in the European Economic Community. I took a couple of photographs of what I saw. The pictures shown here is a photograph taken at a railway station called Tilburg, which is about 40-50 kilometres away from Rotterdam, towards Belgium.

The number of bicycles shown in this photograph shows how simple they are and how every cent is valuable to them. Combined system of Railway in Europe is the best mode of transport, therefore motor vehicles are very minimal. Over a period of one and half day's I saw only one Pajero Intercooler vehicle, on the contrary in my home town in Sri Lanka I counted 17 Pajeros, Prados, Land Cruisers, etc. within a matter of 5 minutes.

This is how our people are taught to maintain pseudo social status. These are legacies of free economy. We cannot any longer follow policies of "Nero fiddling while Rome was burning". We have to get to the bottom of the problem. India today has come very fast. They believe in simplicity and this is what Mahatma Gandhi taught them. We can see people like Vajpayee dressed in the most simple way. Even Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is very simple in her dress, even being a foreigner. But where are we.

There are lots of other aspects in this regard. There is room for drastic reduction in the expenditure. For instance the scheme of decentralised budget is a big farce, when the MP represents a District and not an electorate what is the big idea in providing on electoral basis. For example if there are 20 MPs in a district, the provision is 70 million.

This can easily be reduced for a period of 3 years to about 25 million, and utilised only for top most urgent projects. In the same way the Provincial Councils are not geared to carry out the burden they are expected to shoulder. But these members have super luxury vehicles, these attitudes must change. If Provincial Councils are made to function in their legitimate manner, then we can reduce the total expenditure of main body, the Parliament by around 50%. Why are politicians feeling shy to do the correct things in the correct way.

Let us turn back to the election in the country the General Election and local govt election. I am aware in most remote areas at the most bottom level candidates at local elections spent a minimum of Rs. 100,000 whereas in more affluent areas like Kelaniya, Maharagama, Kotte etc. there were people spending millions. There was a colossal wastage of diesel and petrol. Thus it was proved beyond doubt that the money of the country lies with the politicians and not the entrepreneurs. Are the politicians not recovering what they spent, and who is providing the funds for squandering in the national budget.

We have another mania in looking for foreign investors. If they are coming we will welcome them, but why cannot we build our own investors, who are more reliable to us, more stable to the country and the economy, who will not runaway under adverse conditions. Let us not experience the what happened to the stock market and other spheres. Let us have a look at our foreign missions abroad, I am personally aware that none of High Commissioners or Ambassadors and their staff have done their mint for the country. The Foreign Ministers, Finance Ministers and the Trade Ministers did not have the knowledge to drive them to bring dollars, pounds etc. to Sri Lanka, by promoting exports. In this sphere we can do a lot to the rural folk and strengthen the rural economy.

The Sri Lankan Embassies and High Commissions have to do a mighty lot where exports are concerned. I am personally aware since I have through my own efforts secured export orders for an entirely new product in the European market. If sincere and genuine efforts are made I should say that SKY is the LIMIT.

Organisations are immatured bodies with only 50 years of experience advising and directing Third World countries because of their financial strength our people in this country can do a mighty lot if we move slightly away from them, but our financial commitments are too much. I would wish to recall what Dr. Saman Kelegama said about the IMF and the World Bank, in the presence of their representatives at the Central Bank Auditorium reviewing some discussions. He said IMF and the World Bank are still experimenting with Third World countries. Already Malaysia has taken positive steps and even Indonesia, so why not Sri Lanka.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager