Letters to the Editor - Economist turned politician

Saturday, 21 April 2012 00:50 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

I was very disappointed to read W.A. Wijewardena’s recent article about ‘Growth growth everywhere’. In that article, he is now showing very clearly his political motives, and the fact that he is using his articles to provide material for the UNP politicians to discredit the Central Bank.

As an ex-Deputy Governor I think it is highly unbecoming of Wijewardena to distort the method of calculating the per capita income. Being a keen reader of the Central Bank reports over the past 10 years, I find that the Central Bank has applied the same basis which is used internationally to compute the GDP per capita, for the year 2011 as well.

My references also indicate that the same basis has been used even when Wijewardena was the Deputy Governor. Therefore, seeing flaws in the computation of GDP per capita suddenly indicates that Wijewardena is now turning himself into a politician and is becoming totally subjective. In future, I will not attach any importance to Wijewardena’s so-called economic writings because now I know he is merely acting as a tool for UNP politician Dr. Silva.

Rohitha Gunasinghe