President gets economics lecture from Harsha in Parliament

President Mahinda Rajapaksa who attended the Parliament yesterday on the special session on amendments to the Finance Act received a lecture on economics from none other than UNP MP Dr. Harsha de Silva.

While Dr. De Silva was engaged in a rather heavy criticism of the proposed amendments to the Finance Act to allow for free ports in Sri Lanka, the President walked into the Chamber.  

Noting his presence, the UNP MP then went on to what analysts described as a lecture in good economics to the President, who is also the Finance Minister.

MP De Silva said it was much better to have a fence and a gate that can be opened to let people in instead of removing the entire fence as an analogy to explain that it would be better to amend the Exchange Control Act, Import and Export Control Act and the Customs Ordinance than the proposed amendment to the Finance Act to totally exempt enterprises from provisions of the three acts.

The UNP MP also explained that the legislation proposed was extreme neo-liberalism and quoted from his own 2012 Budget speech in which he deplored the doctrine.

The President listened nodding his head in what seemed to be some sort of reluctant agreement.

Dr. De Silva also charged that whatever President was told by certain people including the Governor of the Central Bank, the indicator to measure real development, the mean real income of households, has declined, albeit marginally between 2006 and 2010

Seeing a bemused President, the UNP MP also reiterated that was the reality.  “The President should listen to criticism and ask officials to explain the reality,” chipped in Dr. De Silva.