Wednesday Nov 13, 2024
Wednesday Nov 13, 2024
Monday, 11 November 2024 01:06 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National People’s Power (NPP) is suddenly glorifying new liberal agenda of Ranil Wickremesinghe, claims Dr. Harsha de Silva, who is contesting for the Colombo district from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).
He accused the JVP of opposing every single reform including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement, Central Bank law and debt management, for the last 40 years.
“This is a confused set of people and they also have no experience. They will try to bring textbook mechanics to run this economy,” he claimed, recalling how the JVP-led NPP went to the Supreme Court (SC) against the Economic Transformation Act.
“They argued that moving away from the import substitution economy to export oriented economy, was in violation of Sri Lanka’s Constitution,” he explained.
Dr. de Silva was the former Non-Cabinet Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution, State Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs and was also the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
A prominent economist and a well-read seasoned politician, Dr. de Silva said he has done a satisfying service to the people and if they will not recognise his service, he will start writing his book on ‘how the legislature collaborated with the executive to take the country out of the deep crisis’ as a guide to other States which face similar economic downfalls.
Following are the excerpts of the interview:
Q: Do you think Sri Lanka’s economy will be on track under AKD’s Government as they have a manifesto which addresses issues of all sectors?
I want to ask, “Why do you go to an ayurvedic physician and drink ‘kasaya’ if you don’t believe in it? The JVP has been advocating a different economic model for over four decades. Even today photos of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin are hung in their offices.
The JVP opposed every single reform thus far for the last 40 years. They opposed the IMF agreement, Central Bank law, debt management and every single piece of legislation.
Suddenly, they are now glorifying the new liberal agenda of Ranil Wickremesinghe while having an internal conflict between JVP and NPP. Therefore, I don’t see this is going to fly because I don’t think there is consistency in their policies.
Q: The NPP has clearly said that they will not go for privatisation; how important is it for Sri Lanka to have reforms to get out of the prevailing economic crisis?
It is critically important and without reforms Sri Lanka will be dead in the water. What I see is that the reform agenda is already rolled back. Only way that we can get out of this economic crisis is bringing reforms across the board, whether it is in reforms in education, public sector, trade and investments and in every economic sector. Otherwise, we will not succeed.
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Colombo district candidate from SJB Dr. Harsha de Silva
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Q: How important is it for the Government to introduce reforms to attract more foreign investments to the country?
Let’s take just one example of the restructuring of SriLankan Airlines, which would have brought in foreign investments to Sri Lanka. The reforms in the electricity sector or Hilton Hotel would have brought foreign investments. Therefore, rolling back and reversing SOE reforms in this case is going to be detrimental to attracting foreign investors. Even in the electricity sector, they say, reforms will be rolled out. This means that the Government is not sending the right message for the foreign investors to start thinking about Sri Lanka again.
Q: The Government is alleged to have printed money, but it denied, so did CBSL. Any comment and is CBSL’s independence at stake under NPP rule?
This is a very technical point on whether they printed money or not. Yes, whether that has the negative connotation of inflation? The answer is no because this is overnight money and short-term liquidity management. Therefore, as long as money is printed and let out into the market, it is brought back quickly into the market. Then inflation will be negated.
I think this question is much broader. Why? Because these people completely opposed the independence of the Central bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). There is an argument that the Government is elected by the people so then they have a mandate and they should be allowed to direct the CBSL to what they ought to do. It shouldn’t be independent from the political establishment.
I saw an article being written by a NPP sympathiser to the Daily FT that they are to relook at the CBSL new Act. I see the need for independence given to the CBSL being questioned already. It is going to be a debate in the coming months.
Q: The Government says that it is positively progressing with the IMF. Can the Government change the Debt Sustainability Agreement (DSA), if they wish to do so and what are the repercussions if it happened?
The Government can do whatever they want to do but the repercussions are the question. They vociferously argued that they would change the DSA. I was one person who said that they would not do that. But now they haven’t done it and I am sure that they will not do it because if they do it the entire debt restructuring plan falls apart because agreements about to be entered into are all based on the existing DSA.
If they want to do it again, it will probably take another two years. Every month that we delay paying our debt or entering into a new agreement means that interest is gathering. It would be utterly unlikely they will change the DSA at this point of time.
Q: You are a strong believer in the social market economy. Do you think that the NPP Government will also look into economic justice, which was not taken care of under RW’s Government?
The issue is not how they are looking at it but how they are going to deliver it. Unless wealth is created, there is no wealth to be distributed. If they believe in a model that is not growth oriented, the reforms will be rolled back. Then I see a lack of growth. Without growth there will not be wealth generated and without wealth generated, the economic justice is going to be rhetoric.
That is why debt was restructured. The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) was the only entity that was targeted. If there was economic justice that would not have happened. There were many instances that the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government has ignored economic justice for other reasons.
Q: You are one of the senior politicians who signalled about a serious economic collapse years back. Do you also see a similar situation emerging if the NPP Government moves forward differently or do you see similarities between the previous Governments and this Government?
I was the first person to have warned the then Government about a looming economic crisis, exactly five years ago. You are not believing in something that you can’t put your heart and soul into. Then you don’t know enough about it and are confused. If the NPP is going to carry out Ranil Wickremesinghe’s neoliberal plan while attempting to reverse the reforms, it will go into a very confused state. And what I feel is that a danger is there as one political ideology is in this. That is the NPP which means that they carry the JVP ideology – the red. And the pinks are small civil society organisations, etc. and there is no political ideology there. Even though they basically have a changed look saying that they are pro-business and for reforms and continue with the IMF, etc., my fear is that when the red political ideology gobbles up the pinks, then we are going to start seeing major issues because those JVPers have been totally anti-reforms all these years.
They are not going to suddenly say that since they are now in the Government, they will let go of their ideology, which they followed for decades and suddenly embrace Ranil Wickremesinghe’s neoliberalism. I doubt very much that will happen. A mis-match of ideologies and an act of appreciation of the reason for reforms and lack of belief in the model, I think will end up in disaster.
Q: In SJB’s manifesto – the BluePrint-3.0 – Singapore was taken as a model country, which most of the previous governments also looked at to turn this country into another Singapore. Do you think that Sri Lanka should look upon Singapore in terms of reforms and governance?
Yes, absolutely. If you look at what happened in Singapore recently, its former Transport Minister S. Iswaran was accused of taking bribes. The Government, which held a political corruption trial, quickly took up the matter and Iswaran is now in jail. That is a kind of governance reforms that Sri Lanka needs.
We have been arguing for governance reforms and talked about how those reforms have created efficiency. Yes we have to 100% look at how they run their country. See how they have become a global player from having pig toilets in the 1960s to one of the richest countries in the world. Singapore is a small place with a size of the district of Colombo but despite their size how their ideology has taken them to the place that they are in today.
Once I met the Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who told me that he was jealous of us. He said: “When I was flying in, I saw all the green, water and agricultural lands. We don’t have them but Sri Lanka has them all. There is much you guys can do.”
Yes, we have everything from agricultural land, ocean resources and natural resources. We are better located than Singapore geographically and strategically. If we learn from Singapore’s reforms and governance, we can do a lot more than Singapore.
Q: It was said that there was a conflict between Pinks and Reds within the NPP. If it is true, how does it affect the country’s stability, including economic stability?
Yes, it will definitely affect the country’s economic stability. This is a confused set of people and they also have no experience. They will try to bring textbook mechanics to run this economy. Without any experience if they hope to carry on like this it will certainly be a disaster.
Q: With the SJB’s defeat at the Presidential election and forthcoming General Elections, does the SJB focus on changes within the party to move forward strongly for a victory?
The SJB is obviously contesting in this General Election to win and nobody wants to fight an election to lose. We have made certain changes and dropped the bad apples. We have cleaned up our stables. We are coming forward to the people to do two things – one is to work with the President in fighting corruption, which is critical and the second thing is to ensure that the economy will not collapse once again because of wrong policies.
Why do we want to run to lose, so we want to form a Government, which is the objective of any political party.
Q: Many people who were original UNPers wanted to have a single collective force with two parties – SJB and UNP. But due to the power-hungry attitude of both party leaders, both recorded a defeat at the Presidential elections. As a senior political hand, who knows the pulse of both leaders, why did you fail to negotiate for a merger? And what went wrong?
It is up to the two individuals to decide. I can’t change the way they feel about each other and that is beyond me. But certainly, what happened was the original party members, I mean those who were with us split at this election. What we need to do is give the opportunity to the members who believed in our ideology to stand together again. We should do whatever we can do in the future to ensure that we provide people who believe in us the opportunity to be heard and their ideology to win. We will work towards this in the future.
Q: How is your election campaign going at the moment and what kind of welcome do you get from the people as many are of the view that there should be a fresh team of Parliamentarians in the legislature?
To me personally, the reception that I get from people is wonderful. I feel so good about what I have done thus far, that people are so thankful to me everywhere I go. They appreciate the 1990 Suwa Sariya ambulance service.
They say that you have always fought and stood for us. These are the things that any politician would like to hear. I am absolutely confident of my success in the district of Colombo at the forthcoming elections.
Q: People have rejected many of the senior politicians and wanted a new team to run the Government. How do you see this and can a team of novice Parliamentarians run the Government in this crisis situation?
That is not possible when a country is facing such a serious economic crisis. When I first came to the Parliament 14 years ago, I had a good knowledge of the economy and I thought I knew things but after 15 years being in the parliament, I have realised that it is very complex when you take what is in the text books vs. what is the reality. They are two different things. Therefore, experience is absolutely essential. If you try to run a State with a bunch of novices, it is bound to fail.
Therefore, while I agree that you need fresh young faces in the parliament, they should be mixed with those who have experience to perform well and learn the reality in politics. It has to be a mixed team.
Q: You said you came as a professional to the Parliament. The NPP has also fielded professionals. They will also learn gradually.
Yes but this is not the time to learn. This country is bankrupt. The experience is critical. If a company is in a crisis situation, will they hire an inexperienced staff but they will always look for people with experience to pull the company out of the crisis. This is not a time to test or learn. People have given the mandate to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to fight corruption and perform well to steer the country out of the prevailing serious economic crisis.
Therefore, the Government needs experienced and capable people to make sure the country will get out of the crisis and get on a path for progress.
Q: What is your view about the SME sector, which needs special attention to get out from their serious financial burdens and how this Government can support them?
The whole issue has to be looked into in the context of creating growth in this economy, creating job opportunities, and creating space for entrepreneurs to succeed. For that the Government needs to unshackle the economy. They need to provide opportunities for enterprises and entrepreneurs, small or large, to capture global markets. You can’t do that with a closed mindset and insular statist approach.
You can promise the sun and the moon unless you understand that Sri Lanka has to become a component of a global market place otherwise there is no opportunity for SMEs or anyone else to excel. One point is when the Economic Transformation Act was brought in, the JVP led NPP went to the Supreme Court (SC) and argued that moving away from the import substitution economy to export oriented economy, was in violation of Sri Lanka’s Constitution. If that is their ideology and this is not the JVP but the so called NPP went to Courts. This is what confuses us as to what these people stand for.
If they can go to the SC and say that it violates the country’s Constitution, it is quite clear that there is no way that this country’s economy can grow. To go back import substitution and statist policies to say that we will completely own SriLankan Airlines and funding and bring the capital when we have no capital, it is basically blocking the path to progress.
I see a slowing down of growth and only muddling alone as a force to having a dynamic fast growth with this type of people at the head
Q: You are one of the best economists in this country; if you are not elected what are you going to do?
I have multiple options. I never go ask for people to elect me but if they feel I served them genuinely it is up to them to elect me once again. I came into politics after I built my own economy. I don’t rely on politics and I do it because I have a passion and I want to change this country one day. I have a vision for this country. However, I see people rallying around that vision. That is what I do when people appreciate my service. They say you get more merit than votes. Yes, merit is a much bigger reward than a vote. I am confident as people do appreciate my style of politics.
But, by any chance they say my services are not needed, I have many other plans. The head of the IMF delegation to Sri Lanka, who came to Sri Lanka during the crisis situation asked me: “Harsha, why don’t you write a book about how the legislature collaborated with the executive to take the country out of the deep crisis?”
I never joined the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government and never took positions but as the member of the Opposition and the Chairman of the Committee of the Public Finances, I have done an unseen and below the radar, for the country and not many people know about it.
By writing my book I want people of other countries, which have fallen to the same economic difficulties, to know what lessons they can learn from us. Whether I am going to win or lose on 14 November, I am going to write my book soon.
If the NPP is going to carry out Ranil Wickremesinghe’s neoliberal plan while attempting to reverse the reforms, it will go into a very confused state. And what I feel is that a danger is there as one political ideology is in this. That is the NPP which means that they carry the JVP ideology – the red. And the pinks are small civil society organisations, etc. and there is no political ideology there