Archives

Sri Lanka is a signatory to the United Nations pledge to meet what are being referred to as the Millennium Development Goals. All the member countries of the United Nations have signed to meet these goals by the end of the year 2015.

First among them is "curtail poverty and hunger." The aim will be to cut by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar, roughly one hundred rupees, a day. For Sri Lanka this will be an enormous task. At present nearly half of all Sri Lankans 1.9 million families or nearly 10 million people are Samurdhi beneficiaries. These families who average about five in number earn less than Rs 2,500 per month.

All the Samurdhi beneficiaries therefore come under the dollar-a-day group and reducing this huge group by half in the next 12 years will be a monumental task. In the past few years we have seen a three percent reduction in the number of Samurdhi recipients, mostly due to corrections in the lists where ineligible people were removed. But the problem of acute poverty remains one that has to be addressed.

Most observers of Sri Lanka's economy would offer the opinion that it has been the war that has driven the economy to this point where the state's coffers are empty. They would say essential funds for development were channelled for defence. The military allocation for 2001 was Rs 41 billion and Samurdhi was Rs 15.22 billion. Perhaps this year there would have been a saving from defence because no military operations were conducted although keeping the forces on alert in the North and East would have entailed a significant cost. The war also kept foreign investors and tourists away in large numbers reducing the income that the country would have got.

That is why peace is essential for Sri Lanka if we are to emerge from the grinding cycle of poverty. Now that there is hope for the future on the peace front, we have to ensure plans to bring the poor out of their rut.

The budget proposals due tomorrow are unlikely to see a cut in Samurdhi benefits despite the precarious financial situation of the government. No government can afford to remove this subsidy because the reality is that so many of us live below the poverty line and they have to be helped.

What is needed is a macro economic plan that will increase employment and thereby earnings for the unfortunate at the bottom of the pile. What is also clear is that the government may not be able to find the funds to kick-start the economy.

What it can do is to sell the government's assets to pay the national debt and mobilise funds for development. It can also set the policy framework for the private sector to inject fresh funds and begin development.

This way there is an increased responsibility for the private sector to take on an important role in increasing the incomes of the people across the board. Economic reform now being undertaken by the government will set up the right framework and unleash the entrepreneurial potential of Sri Lankans. But with these new freedoms comes responsibility and the private sector must come up trumps.

In the posh nightclubs of Colombo there are men and women who regularly quaff a hundred thousand rupees worth of champagne on a night. None would grudge their enjoyment if they had earned the money fair and square. But these high-flyers also need to think of the poor outside their door who need to be looked after. Are they to be condemned to an eternal life under Samurdhi, or are we to find ways of bringing them out of that abyss and help them reach their full potential?

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