Development and ostentation

Sri Lanka is on the threshold of unprecedented accelerated development. This is the news that is beamed from the TV stations, broadcast over radio channels and displayed in the print media. Politicians daily remind the people that the development era has begun.

In fact, the talk is now about the development war. Having triumphed in the war against separatism some politicians claim that winning the development war is simply nothing. It’s peanuts, they make the people understand.

This is not a good stand. It lulls people into complacency. It assumes that development would come without any sacrifice, dedication or hard work. There is no need to tighten belts. Though circumstances may force the majority to tighten belts to some extent there is ostentation and waste at the other pole. The rich and the new rich do not seem understand the virtues of thrift and saving.

Development is liked to a war and rightly so. But Sri Lankans who have gone through a near three-decade war have seen both ostentation and waste right through that war. The country was never put on a war footing. Nor was conscription enforced. While the poor bore the brunt of the war physically, economically and psychologically the affluent made war a means of aggrandisement and refrained from sending their sons and daughters to the front.

The country has set an ambitious target. The GDP is to be doubled to US $ 4,000 in five years. The economists, of course point out that we should at least raise our savings to 35 percent of the GDP to achieve such a feat.

The fact that the country has been able only to reach a savings ratio of about 20 percent in 60 years of independence is quite forgotten.

The target, however, is achievable at a cost. Nothing is given free or obtained without effort. One has to labour even to get what is a gift of nature. That includes the air we breathe too, for it has lost its pristine state due to human action. Therefore it comes at a cost to our health. Water has already become a commodity in the market.

It is not only natural but also obligatory to limit ostentation and waste, if we are to increase savings. The current Christmas and New Year festivities do not show that we have understood the need to do away with both. It is criminal folly to waste State subsidized electricity for all night illuminations and marketing purposes. It is true the individual consumers pay for the electricity consumed. Yet there is a share the public have to put in due to the subsidy. It is yet another case of the poor paying for the affluence of the rich.

Both public and private sector will have to curb ostentation and waste. The developmental tasks are far too immense. The cost of Northern reconstruction and reviving the livelihood of the war victims itself is a colossal task demanding much sacrifice.

Though the country was not put on a war footing during the separatist war it has to be put on a development war footing. Of course, part of it is already there by way of suppressed wage increases. There are, however, no corresponding sacrifices by the rich. Just like the unemployed demanding jobs from the State the private sector too does not want a dent in their coffers and demand concession after concession from the State. There is nothing wrong in granting concessions if they spur investment and growth. But if they are absorbed to fatten the profits as in the case of vehicle importers the concessions become devoid of meaning.

Though it is not possible to eliminate waste in war, in development it is absolutely necessary. Every rupee invested should bring dividends unlike in war where much more than a single bullet is necessary to take the life of a single enemy.

It is time to curtail wasteful expenditure, especially those that are spent from the public purse on cutouts and egocentric propaganda of politicians, tamashas and other forms of vulgar ostentation. This also includes expensive foreign trips by politicians and officials for functions that could be attended by our representatives abroad with equal (if not better) competence. Instances are numerous when such trips have brought no advantage or gain to the country.

Development is war. War entails discipline, organization and a chain of command. It is impossible to achieve development without them. It is time for everybody including politicians and bureaucrats to abandon the realm of fantasy and rhetoric and enter the realm of action and work.