Sri Lanka’s new government should not create or foster false hope in the world.
by Victor Cherubim
Almost everyone in Sri Lanka knows that economic stability must be established if we are to be considered a stable and reliable government. Years, if not decades, of mismanagement, or “vedamathaya” and/or soothsayer prescriptions, predictions, or even visits of atonement to the “Temples of the Gods of Andhra” in South India, could hardly suffice to correct the decline in many of our ways. As our new President stated in his Address to the Nation a few days ago, he has a “Vision for Change”, but he is no magician. It will take time, effort, understanding, and action. We must “begin the beginning”.
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| Iconic Lotus Tower in Colombo, Sri Lanka [ Photo: Nawod Madhuvantha] |
To emerge from external default, we need to show ourselves, and the world at large, that we are doing everything within our country to bring about at least a semblance of political stability. We must demonstrate to our people that we have a genuine plan of action and the will to bring about a lasting peace, which is achievable, given time.
We have paid too much for the war of attrition and still need to settle the cost of the war in terms of both lives and finances before we can move forward.
Since the end of the war, we have been living in a false sense of comfort – the comfort of unbearable costs – by printing money and spending on imported goods we could hardly afford. One way we “bought peace in our lives” was by relying on the importation of goods. Goods, however, are no substitute for peace. This was clearly a mismatch, which we failed to correct until we were forced into the hands of the IMF, a medicine too costly to sustain or bear.
Critics have not been lacking in pointing out that this plan was never sustainable. It imposed unnecessary burdens on the people through higher food and energy costs. Moreover, after the end of the long war, we were afraid of ever finding ourselves in such a situation again, so we kept replenishing our military arsenal at exorbitant costs to the economy. The outside world, I believe, drove us to this predicament, at the expense of a justifiable peace. In hindsight, we fell into this trap, and our neighbours were laughing, hoping to fund us for our short-sightedness.
Peace is no easy task, but the election of our new President seems to mark a defining moment in our history. Contrary to all expectations, change has come about in an orderly and peaceful manner, without bloodshed. This has taken years of hard planning and has come at a great sacrifice to our people.
To consolidate this peaceful transition, we see many things that give us solace and hope. We see three ministers running the government until the General Election mandate for governance on 14 November 2024. The world, too, has watched with eager interest how we aim to stabilise peace in our land, hopefully within a reasonable time frame, bringing light at the end of the tunnel.
From small beginnings, a Plan of Recovery is noticeably being implemented in various departments of government administration and the Services, without much fanfare.
Even the IMF and our debtor nations are noticing a refreshing change in our approach, particularly in how we hope to resolve our debt burden in a structured manner. This is more than comforting.
I don’t know how you, my readers, view this change, but for me, as an “oldie”, I feel that with the necessary support from the people in the weeks ahead of the General Election, we may see the clouds of doubt dissipating, and a new dawn of peace could break over our land – a cherished dream that we can all be rightly proud to share as citizens. An attack on waste, of manpower and materials, is a step forward and will provide fresh thinking.
Victor Cherubim is a London-based writer and a frequent columnist of the Sri Lanka Guardian
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