Friday Nov 22, 2024
Friday Nov 22, 2024
Wednesday, 22 March 2017 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
I am amazed that Professor Razeen Sally, Chairman, Institute of Policy Studies, has thought it fit to write an intensely politically-biased article titled ‘Sri Lanka: Three scenarios’ in your esteemed newspaper. The article contains some broad-based ‘kokatath-thailaya’ theoretical statements which are even known to the beginners in economics and government finance. The article also does not suggest any specific strategy and is full of rhetoric, which is of no value to the present economic policymakers like Charitha Ratwatte or R. Paskaralingam.
In a way, I am sorry that this Government has not appointed Professor Sally as the Governor of the Central Bank or the Minister of 
Finance because, if so, the entire country would have known in a very short time, how impractical and unworkable Sally’s solutions actually are.
Let me also say that Professor Sally would do well to even grudgingly acknowledge that the Sri Lankan economy performed at its best under President Rajapaksa because the majority of the people, the elite and the not-so-elite, have begun to realise that truth, however unpalatable that may be to learned professors.
Notwithstanding the huge propaganda and misinformation, professionals and ordinary folk now see that all macro-fundamentals in the economy improved in leaps and bounds during the Rajapaksa times, and economic opportunities were plenty for everyone, while a massive development took place at every level.
My advice to Professor Sally is to continue to write books and give lectures at the Singapore universities, and not mislead the Sri Lankan policy planners by giving impractical sermons, studded with ancient quotations.
After all, Sri Lanka has the ‘Best Finance Minister of Asia’ and a Governor who Sally has identified as “this Government’s only good senior appointment”. Please let them do their jobs and stop the “drift” that Sally is warning against, since the current Minister and Governor must surely be more competent than all other policymakers, past and present.
Nihal Gomes
