Disingenuous mea culpa

Foreign Minister Ali Sabry made a startling confession recently admitting that he and the rest of the Cabinet of Ministers under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration were unaware of the severity of the impending economic crisis. “The leaders, including myself, have failed this nation but they are not alone. Everybody else also failed this nation,” said the minister who had held the portfolios of justice and finance under the previous administration before being appointed as Foreign Minister by President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Firstly, claiming that the Cabinet of Ministers was unaware of the severity of the economic situation is a fallacy. It is the Cabinet that approved the disastrous tax cuts in November 2019 that precipitated the financial crisis. If the members of Cabinet could read and comprehend there were ample warnings in the public domain. The question that Minister Sabry and others should ask is why was the Cabinet so powerless to make appropriate decisions and correct course when things were going wrong. Why was it that a few individuals were given the total control of economic policy without any checks and balances?  

It is here that Minister Sabry is disingenuous in his false claims of mea culpa. It is not only the ignorance of the Cabinet that led to the crisis but the erosion of checks and balances that were in place in the governance structure. Minister Ali Sabry was one of the main proponents of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution which diluted the oversight powers of Parliament, reduced the independence of key commissions, ensured politicisation of key appointments to the Government and concentrated enormous power in one institution, the executive presidency. To the great misfortune of Sri Lankans the man bestowed with these tremendous powers of the executive was Ali Sabry’s client, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The former leader had hardly passed secondary education and did not have a basic grasp of economics. Driven by business interests of those who brought him to power he enacted a disastrous tax cut that plummeted government revenue. The COVID pandemic affecting the tourism industry and the Central Bank burning foreign reserves to maintain an artificial exchange rate which in turn significantly reduced remittances from expatriate workers ensured a massive depletion in government income and foreign reserves.

During this time Parliament could not even summon the Governor of the Central Bank or the secretary to the treasury. The Governor claimed to hold Cabinet rank and claimed not to be answerable to Parliament. Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa was not in Parliament to answer questions on the economy either. To this date no one has been held criminally responsible for their actions that crippled the country and delivered a sovereign default.

Minister Sabry was at the forefront of promoting Gotabaya Rajapaksa as an “efficient war hero.” His efficiency was purportedly even at the cost of silencing critics including journalists. As the former President’s personal lawyer Sabry was fully aware of the individual he was ‘selling’ to the Sri Lankan people, an uneducated, mentally imbalanced dud without any political or economic acumen. Even worse Sabry was one of the foremost proponents of the 20th Amendment which entrusted enormous powers with this incompetent individual. Having done all that harm, Sabry claims that the Cabinet of Ministers lacked knowledge of economics which caused the crisis.  

If Minister Sabry is genuinely remorseful and accepts responsibility for his own actions and that of the Cabinet in which he was part of then he should resign without enjoying the perks of office. Expecting such a principled stand from a man who as justice minister did nothing while his Government implemented a racist policy of forcefully cremating Muslim victims of COVID is wishful thinking.