Harsha 100% confident of UNP victory

Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Affairs Dr. Harsha de Silva is confident United National Party will win the upcoming general election. “I cannot say we will get the required 113 seats but the UNP will definitely win the general election” he said.

Q: We are only a couple of weeks away from the general election. But there is hardly a visible campaign from any of the parties. Why?

A: The United National Party started work a long time ago. I started my campaign in August 2014. The campaign doesn’t necessarily have to be in your face. We haven’t put up a single huge cut out. In fact every hoarding I have put up is legally authorised by the Police and the Elections Commissioner. In that backdrop, I sometimes feel my campaign is lagging behind because there isn’t much visibility and I do not have that much of money. However, out of the 26,400 homes in my electorate in Kotte, I have personally visited almost 17,800 homes. I am very happy with what I have done. Everywhere I go people ask how my ‘kakkuma’ is. MP Mangala Samaraweera told me that the most registered word in this campaign is kakkuma.

This is the first time I am contesting and I am realising it is almost impossible to be visible everywhere because it is a huge area. Something that I realise after this campaign is I am going to raise both my hands for the 20th Amendment. I am certain that I will win in Colombo; I don’t know where exactly in the list I will come. But that is not very relevant because it is a very strong list. I feel that the preferential votes will be close to each other.

Q: How confident are you that the UNP will win?

A: I am 100% confident that we will win this election. That is not based on the 58-62 lakhs number and all of that the Opposition is talking about. How that 58 lakhs number was obtained in the first place and what happened since then is what we need to think about. The SLFP has been taken hostage by forces and is in disarray. The real SLFPers are in a quandary; they don’t know what or which side to be on. What Maithripala Sirisena came out and told the people has created a very complex situation for the SLFPers.

From a strategic point of view this chaotic situation in the Opposition is beneficial for us. All of that put together, the UNP certainly is the party that will come out with the most number of votes which would translate into the most number of seats. I don’t know whether we will get 113 seats or not. If we get 113, that would be the ideal situation. If we don’t we will have to form a coalition with the people who are similar in thinking to us. The percentage situation is very good for the UNP.

Q: In percentage terms, how much have you accomplished of the 100 day program?

A: The 100 day program was three-pronged. The first one was easing of the cost of living burden. Data shows that a significant amount of saving on income has increased; each household has had an easing of the cost of living. The second was strengthening democracy by bringing the 19th Amendment, Right to Information Act, etc. We managed to change the Constitution and now what is remaining is get the regulations fast and the bills made into acts and legislate them. We have done the best we could, given that the Opposition always tried to scuttle the process.

The third is dealing with corruption. I think significant progress has been made. From what I understand there are some 1,000 odd complaints and 50 odd complaints have gone into the stage of being investigated. This is going to be a huge process. Meanwhile our officers received special training by Interpol, FBI and other institutions that investigate financial frauds. Our officers were not ready to get into this type of investigations. They have not really done it before. These investigations will take a little time, but it is happening. Maybe 70% of what we promised was delivered.

"I sometimes feel my campaign is lagging behind because there isn’t much visibility and I do not have that much of money. However, out of the 26,400 homes in my electorate in Kotte, I have personally visited almost 17,800 homes. I am very happy with what I have done. Everywhere I go people ask how my ‘kakkuma’ is. MP Mangala Samaraweera told me that the most registered word in this campaign is kakkuma

The UNP certainly is the party that will come out with the most number of votes which would translate into the most number of seats. I don’t know whether we will get 113 seats or not. If we get 113, that would be the ideal situation. If we don’t we will have to form a coalition with the people who are similar in thinking to us. The percentage situation is very good for the UNP

Most pledges where we needed the support of the Parliament or legislative enactment, this is where we got stuck. Now we know that was their game plan. They were not going to let us fulfil those pledges. That was their plan. So where we needed the support of the Legislature, we didn’t succeeded. Where we didn’t need Parliamentary approval, we succeeded

The scandals that took place during the previous administration were massive. Whether it’s the Greek bond fiasco or the hedging fiasco, completely by the Central Bank. Then there is the EPF scandal. These are huge. Thousands of people lost everything. Take the Common Wealth Games fiasco; what will happen to this country if that went through? As a country we are fortunate that it didn’t come through"

Q: What were the key pledges that you were unable to fulfil?

A: Most pledges where we needed the support of the Parliament or legislative enactment, this is where we got stuck. Now we know that was their game plan. They were not going to let us fulfil those pledges. That was their plan. So where we needed the support of the Legislature, we didn’t succeeded. Where we didn’t need Parliamentary approval, we succeeded.

Q: Although the UNP came to power claiming to eradicate corruption, one of the biggest allegations against your administration is the Central Bank bond issue. What damage has this caused to your party?

A: I think it has caused some damage. It’s more disappointment on the lines of ‘why did this happen?’ but I don’t think there will be too many people who will actually vote against the UNP because of this allegation. I think people feel that was unnecessary and hope the new government will deal with this once and for all. Those who are in the Opposition are taking political mileage. I am not blaming the Opposition. If I was in the Opposition I would have done the same. Regarding the incident itself, we have to go through proper investigation. The new COPE will have to look at it. The subcommittee report must be submitted to COPE and then to Parliament. Then a decision can be made on what needs to be done.

However, it is incorrect that a Rs. 50 billion loss has been incurred due to this issue. Some are trying to say this was because the interest rates changed. First of all, the difference is not that much. The base that has been taken for calculation is deliberately something that never existed. I as the Deputy Minister am saying this with responsibility, that the calculation was manipulated to take political advantage. Nowhere do you add up future payments and come up with a total figure. In bonds, what you take is the discounted cash flow. I saw former Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal yapping on this recently. I am not surprised if it came from some politician but professionals must be more responsible in using these kinds of figure. Meanwhile, yield curves are never static. They go up; they go down.     

Q: Do you consider the bond scam as one of the biggest scandals that happened in the country?

A: What nonsense. The calculations are totally politicised and totally out of proportion. But the scandals that took place during the previous administration were massive. Whether it’s the Greek bond fiasco or the hedging fiasco, completely by the Central Bank. Then there is the EPF scandal. These are huge. Thousands of people lost everything. Take the Common Wealth Games fiasco; what will happen to this country if that went through? As a country we are fortunate that it didn’t come through.

Q: What assurance can you give that such incidents will not take place under a new UNP administration?

A: What we did was we brought transparency into selling of bonds. If we take figures from 2010 to March 2015 on Treasury bond issues, in 2010 only 9% were through auctions and the balance 91% were private placements. In 2011, auctions 4% and private placements 96%; 2012 auctions 7% and private placements 93%; 2014 auctions 3.2% and private placements 97%.

In the past auctions were very minimal. Private placements without transparency took place to place these bonds with various people. Therefore, a policy decision was made to have transparency in the raising of bonds. The policy decision certainly led to competition in the market which brought in transparency and also given the fund requirement of the government rates that were somewhat higher reflective of the sentiment in the market. Another thing that was done on that day which nobody talks about is that the policy rates were increased by 50 basis points. All of this had an impact on the interest rates going up. When we form the new administration on 18 August, the truth will certainly emerge in terms of a professional analysis in this regard. But if anyone has broken the law they will have to be dealt with.

Q: There is heavy criticism against the UNP for halting development projects carried out by the previous Government. Your views?

A: These are baseless allegations. All these small projects came under us. There are lot of issues with these projects. For an instance the authority of a Pradeshiya Sabha member is limited to Rs. 2 million. But they have valued projects for Rs. 10-12 million. How can you continue such projects? You have to stop them, put them in order, call for tenders and do them properly. Those took some time. We have released about Rs. 15 billion for these small projects which is more than sufficient to continue them.

What we did was that we took those projects out of Ministry of Economic Development and gave it to the line ministries. All those changes in policies have shocked the system a little and caused delays. But now they are clean, depoliticised and decentralised. The big projects where there are complicated legal and environmental issues have to be paused and renegotiated as much as possible before proceeding.

Q: Although you pledged to bring down the massive costs of bigger development projects, we learn that no such action has been taken so far. Your comments?

A: Some projects have been negotiated and signed. It is difficult for us to change some of the conditions that have been agreed upon. But what we are trying to do is renegotiate on the scope and technical aspects of the projects that have not been started. We have found that sometimes projects have been overdesigned. We don’t need to do everything that has been proposed. The Chinese particularly in this case did not want to reduce the cost per se and give the money back, but rather said we will do the project at the same cost but utilise the saving for something else. So money that is saved is used for other projects.

Q: What is the latest on the Port City project?     

A: Negotiations are going on. We have made a decision that no land will be sold outright to the Chinese. We are probably looking at a joint company. Initially it was designed as a purely Chinese operation. They could do whatever they wanted because the land was outright sold to them. Now that cannot happen because it will be a joint company.