Before you join the ‘crowd’ to bash Ravi K, please pause awhile!

By Outsider

Ravi K bashing appears to be de rigueur these days with almost all, yes, even the earlier harassed private newspaper groups joining in the fray like a pack of hyenas going for the jugular. What about TV channels? The less said the better, seriously! 

One should realise that many of the media groups have been bought over by pro-MR lackeys and JO types who benefitted hugely by their unabashed support to the notorious ‘Family Rule’ of almost a decade: those for MR thrived; those neutral or against were in the dog house at best or slapped in the ‘cooler’ or worse, having made to have a tryst with the Grim Reaper!

They say that the Sri Lankan voter is fickle, as fickle as the weather these days – pardon the cliché, yet isn’t that the reality? Just a couple of years ago the average voter was fed-up to his/her back teeth with all sorts of no hope scenarios; the newspaper groups had been battered to subjugation; those brave enough to speak were zeroed in – tracked in a myriad uncivilised ways, tortured, kidnapped and literally killed in the most brutish manner imaginable! Many sought refuge in ‘friendly’ countries. In the meantime the ‘RF’ [then Ruling Family for short] went along as if the entire country was their fiefdom, really! Recall that dark period?

The ‘RF’ even emulated some of the recent despotic one-man shows globally that have been now consigned to the abyss of history, save for North Korea – SL was fast gravitating towards ‘achieving’ such dubious ‘honour’ – thankfully all that was reversed with the 8 January ‘Silent Revolution’. 

Expectations were heady – we need to deliver, despite the grim debt-hole, once again to a spoilt, fickle populace fed with rosy pictures incessantly.

Positive benefits

For those afflicted with some sort of ‘willed amnesia’ Ravi K bashing, almost akin to a daily sickening past-time, let me give you readers just a sprinkling of what Ravi K has offered amidst all this confusion: a myriad tangible benefits to the public… Yes, the innocent depositors of hard-earned cash and SL public!

Honestly, why is the media silent on all these positive benefits?? 

[1] Around 70% of the [collapsed] Pramuka Bank depositors have already received their total deposits without interest through the Sri Lanka Savings Bank. Total amount paid so far is around Rs. 3 billion. Just consider: If not for Ravi K’s intervention not a cent would have been received by Pramuka Bank depositors. 

[2] Golden Key fiasco – A 41% payment was first mooted by Ravi K [RK]. Up to now all the depositors up to Rs 10 million have been settled. The delay in settling the balance depositors beyond Rs. 10 million is due to the fact that a new Board for the Golden Key has to re-constituted; once this is done, all balance payments due will be made. All relevant payments are handled by the Central Bank and not by the Finance Ministry. Here again, Golden Key depositors need to thank Ravi K! 

[3] Streamlining the Customs procedures when taxing of vehicles being imported. RK has blocked the avenues where Customs officers made loads money as bribes!

[4] Please realise: SL was fast becoming a ‘hub for drugs’. So RK set up the Rapid Deployment Unit to raid drugs and illicit liquor smuggling into the country.

[5] RK turned around the National Lotteries Board from a loss maker to profit whilst also increasing the net income from Rs. 15 billion to 20 plus billion.

[6] Similarly, Development Lotteries Board: transformed from loss to profit!

[7] In an unprecedented and proactive move the dynamic Ravi K created the Natural Disaster Insurance Policy via NITF. This is a policy established for the first time in the world. Please digest this little known piece of history. In fact this has been confirmed by none other than the World Bank in writing. Kudos to Ravi K!

[8] Similar policies are being set up for agriculture crop damage due to natural causes and the fisheries industry to give cover to the earlier longsuffering local fisher-folk. Ravi K was/is and will be always at forefront for the ‘small man’!

[9] Increasing tax revenue collection by as much as 13.8% of GDP. 

[10] Senior citizens: Interest rates of Fixed Deposits of up to Rs. 1.5 million; raised to 15%. The earlier regimes only paid lip-service to the senior citizens who have done yeomen service to the nation – yet were forgotten! Not so Ravi K!

[11] Has any earlier regime done anything about effectively reducing the price of vital medicines? No! Ravi K drastically reduced the price of significant medicines. 

Whilst the fiscal policies are tightly controlled and managed under aegis of the Finance Ministry, it is hoped that the Central Bank which monitors inflation and monetary policies are on same page for a smooth passage of all matters germane.

Outstanding performance

Furthermore, are we not proud to learn that Sri Lanka has met all targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its $ 1.5 billion loan, except for net internal [NIR] – all fiscal and revenue targets have been met; in fact 14 out of 15 structural benchmarks have been met – isn’t that an outstanding performance? 

Let’s concede this fact: Ravi K’s overarching Budget was unprecedented. The multiple challenges that faces little SL are simply mind-boggling – what Ravi K has proposed so genuinely and in detail would be applauded by all and any right-thinking person regardless of whatever political hue he or she may subscribe to. And there’s the rub! Here’s a straight question: How many of you have studied Ravi K’s Budget proposals? Or is your vision clouded by daily ranting of JO types?

In terms of a ‘ball park figure’ like many corporate phrases would glibly spew out, a good 95% would have read or ‘heard’ about just a fraction of its real contents. Yet whatever real or imagined phrases that ‘might be inimical’ to the pampered masses or to the point the ‘State sector employees’ have been drummed up on a daily basis with sickening regularity, now reaching a crescendo with GMOA, pro-JVP university students and of course the whipping boys: Ravi K and SAITM!

All type of sundry vermin are joining the band-wagon with placard waving protests – obviously being ‘controlled’ by their filthy rich political masters who love to play ‘spoil sport’ – a national pastime by those bankrupt left-leaning pseudo nationalists, really the bane of progress in post-independence Ceylon/SL.

Should we still have to wallow in this quagmire of simply resorting to populist measures as a means of pandering to the vocal minority? We need to make pragmatism our guiding light, if we really wish to forge a new untrodden path. Change may appear foreign; but change we must. There is no option.