By Garvin Karunaratne

I write in support of the suggestions made by the former Minister Milinda Moragoda. We have to be thankful to Mr Moragoda for his patriotism.

Patriotism is what we need today to save our Motherland. It is sad to say that Sri Lanka is today disintegrating fast. Our economy is in tatters with an international debt that cannot be sustained. We are now in a situation where we have to borrow to repay our debts and in that process we become further  indebted. That was  the path laid for us by the IMF from 1978. Our debt of some $ 60 billion was created through imports for our rich, to finance foreign education for the rich, to import limousines for the rich. Foreign investors also take away their profits in dollars increasing our debt.

 Today our country does not have a single development programme to enable our people to become productive and emerge out of their poverty. All what we see today  in the name of development  are election gimmicks to bribe voters at forthcoming elections.

We have seen the disintegration of a few countries in the past few decades.  In the Fifties, Somalia was a country with a vibrant economy with people in production. Siad Barre the ruler, was first wooed by Russia because Russia wanted control over the strategic Red Sea route. Russia then poured in Aid. Then the United States of America offered more Aid and  Siad Barre  turned to the USA. The local industries, agriculture and animal husbandry were disbanded  and neglected because it was easier to live on borrowed funds. When Russia disintegrated it was no longer necessary for the USA to provide funds to Somalia. Then the  USA reduced Aid. The fallen local economy could not be revived. Poverty and  unemployment reigned supreme.  Warlords started carving out the  land.. The rich migrated to London . In the early Nineties my Somali students at Westminister Institute spoke about the  lost economy- once they were thriving in agriculture and dairy farming. The only employment available today to Somalians is to pirate on the high seas.

 My students were the rich in Somalia who could afford to migrate. Later the rabble scrambled everywhere. There are Somali ghettoes in London, where the whites scramble away from them.

What is happening to Sri Lanka is fairly similar. The economy is in tatters. Everything is imported. There is Salmon to serve the palates of the rich. There is vinegar from the USA, fruit juice from California and Australia.  Plush  Limousines adorn our roads., Everyone that can find money is off abroad, for study hoping to live abroad. The masses live in poverty. The rich live in the lap of luxury, their travel and foreign education for their children taking away foreign exchange that has been borrowed at high interest. It is a fait accompli for sheer disaster. Corruption is rampant.

In the meantime  the USA is forcing security  agreements to send their forces in , because the present leaders have sold the Hambantota Port to a Chinese Company.

Elections are around the corner and it is up to the people to decide to find a leadership that will restore order and build up the lost paradise..

A paradise it can be. I am certain of that.  The writer once worked in the Administrative Service and worked in poverty alleviation programmes that have now been abolished  by the dictates of the IMF. Agriculture that involve over a million is starved of officers. President Premadasa in about 1996 promoted some 2400 overseers as Grama Niladharis and since then the village level does not have a single officer with agricultural training. The Seed Farms that  found high yielding seeds are either privatized or underfunded. The Ministry of Agriculture is unaware that its extension service at the field level is as good as dead. Small industries that once made Sri Lanka self sufficient in textile manufacture is now dead.

We have a ‘sovereign’ country and a Parliament, but it is the IMF that rules and decides what we can do. The IMF tells us to find foreign investors who come in, invest a pittance, trade in local currency and transfer the profits untaxed in our borrowed foreign currency. The Central Bank does not have the knack to handle the foreign exchange that comes in. Its sleuths even fail to find that Tourism is no longer a foreign exchange earner. With hotel bookings mainly done by the internet, the rent being paid in local rupees but the booking agents fee, some fifteen percent being  paid out in foreign currency we are the net loser!

Corruption is rampant. However I can assure that in the Seventies the politicians were not corrupt.

It is in these sad circumstances that the words of patriot Milinda Moragoda comes of great importance.

The 19 th Amendment should be abolished. There is absolutely no point in having a ceremonial president who can only look on while the country is being sold and is being run as a fiefdom of foreign powers. It is the Ambassadors that reign supreme and call the shots today.

Once we had parliamentarians who were responsible to the electors. That was because each parliamentarian  was elected from an electorate. The introduction of Proportional Representation made the parliamentarians corrupt as they had to find finances to do politicking in an entire district to collect a second vote to win. The parliamentarians also lost touch with the people.

The Thirteenth Amendment is of Indian origin. It was forced on us by Rajiv Gandhi who thought that he could satisfy the LTTE. President Jayawardena submitted like a lame duck  and we are saddled with Nine Provincial Councils, with Ministers and councilors  who  are a drain on our budget and act the goat. Key ministries and departments are devolved at the provincial level and the Ministers have to be cajoled and pleaded of to get development work done.

When Mr PC Imbulana, the Governor of the Central Province approved my programme to alleviate poverty  in the Central Province and convened all provincial ministers and officials  for a conference, none of the ministers attended.  Sri Lanka is a small country  and  when nine provincial ministers and officials have to be wooed to get any programme of development done, it is impossible for any development programme to be implemented.  Earlier all Government Agents were summoned to a conference and were given order to proceed. They had full powers and need not go behind councilors to agree. When I as Senior Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services sent out a circular on fertlizer use to all my staff- the Assistant Commissioners of the districts, the divisional officers and the overseers at thefield level the circular had immediate effect.  My officers had to act on the instructions immediately. That was how we implemented the green revolution and now any ministry that wants to attend to any development task has to resort to wooing provincial  ministers, who have their own agendas. Sri Lanka is too small a country to have provincial councils.

An important fact is that President Jayawardena had obtained undated letters of resignation from all Members of Parliament other than Ronnie de Mel, had incarcerated all of them in a hotel and when he wanted them to vote in Parliament would escort them to parliament and force them to vote as he decided on pain of dissolving parliament if they did not carry his orders. That was how President Jayawardena got the 13 th Amendment passed. The  undemocratic manner in which the Act was passed itself militates  the abolition of the 13 th Amendment.  I have never heard of a leader of a country resorting to holding elected representatives of a country to ransom to force them to vote in the annals of politics.  President Jayawardena’s curse on this country- the Thirteenth Amendment has to be abolished someday.

The Provincial Councils deserve to be abolished  for development to become a reality.

Minister Milinda Moragoda has also suggested a Senate comprising professionals and patriots as a second house. This is an ideal suggestion if unwanted and rejected people are not nominated.

It is not necessary to panic.

Our Armed Forces can be trusted. The problem is that the Police are detailed to look after politicians and not to look after the people. Even news of the 21/4 attacks were informed to politicians and no action taken to safeguard the people. Our Cardinal has uttered words of wisdom which are worth following.

We have a country blessed with ample resources, an intelligent people and able administrators.  Let me tell a few truths to prove that our economy can be won. Once we had the Marketing Department that purchased veg and fruit from all producer fairs, at prices higher than what the traders offered. Tripoli Market in Maradana its headquarters was a hive of activity every morning with twenty wagon loads and some thirty lorry loads of produce. All that was checked and sent off to retail units in Colombo to be sold keeping a margin of fifteen percent to cover handling and wastage. The MD shops sold at low prices. That is how we provided profits to the farmers and also controlled inflation in cities. We had a Canning Factory that exported pineapple. The IMF disbanded that Marketing Department. We have to bring it back. Once for a full year I was in charge of Tripoli Market. Now we even import veg and fruits!

In Industries we have the ability to make all  what we import.

Once we had Powerlooms and Handlooms run by Small Industries Department and the Divisional Secretaries.  We were self sufficient in textiles. The IMF disbanded the Small Industries. I can assure anyone that we did well. My Powerloom at Hakmana made suiting that was in high demand even in London. My books: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka(2006) and How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle/Godages(2017) detail how our economy was ruined..

Let me tell another detail to prove that we can be a success.. The Ministry of Plan Implementation  did not approve my doing any new industries when as the GA at Matara I was charged with creating employment in 1971. I wanted to teach the Ministry a lesson. I commandeered the science lab at Rahula College Matara every evening from six till midnight. My Planning Officer, a raw chemistry graduate supported by the science teachers did a myriad experiments to find the art of making crayons. We found the method  and made it to be equal in quality to the Crayola crayons of today, accomplished in three months. In league with the Morawaka Cooperative Union under Sumanapala Dahanayake the member of parliament who was its president, we got down to produce crayons- done  in two weeks working day and night. The Minister of Industries was stunned to see the quality of our crayons and came to open up sales and with that the Ministry had to eat humble pie. Sumanapala developed CoopCrayon  to have islandwide sales. It was the best industry that was ever run,  proved because President Jayawardena in 1978  sent a special officer, A.T.Ariyaratne a Deputy Director of Cooperative Development to find some fault with the Crayon factory. That Deputy Director spent days and reported that it was a well run industry. That saved Sumanapala from prison..

We now import everything we can make. We can make most of our Paper from waster paper which we throw away now and from straw which farmers burn to get rid of. It can easily be done within six months. Our economic pundits will come up with  a hundred provisos- economics of scale and lack of foreign exchange criteria which industrial giants India and China do not follow. They are all paper qualified who have never established an industry in their lives. We can provide full employment to our people by banning imports and making them in our country.

Let me tell  how we can build industries by cutting imports. Our CoopCrayon  required a permit to import dyes, the only imported ingredient in making crayons.  The Ministry of Industries refused as ours was a cooperative venture.  The Controller of Imports had separated foreign exchange to import crayons.  I pointed out to Harry Guneratne, the Controller of Imports  that he could save foreign exchange by allowing us some of that foreign exchange to import dyes. because we will be making the crayons that he was hoping to import. He  was immediately convinced. Minister Illangaratne who approved it even wanted me to establish a crayon factory at Kolonnawa, his electorate. A small allocation of foreign exchange to import dyes enabled the Ministry of Imports to cut the import of crayons. That is how we have to cut our imports and make things ourselves. A crayon is a sophisticated product. If we could have made crayons, which we did,, there is no item that we cannot make.

. ‘We have to get parliamentarians in the caliber of Sumanapala Dahanayake  to our Houses of Parliament today.

While fully supporting Milinda Moragoda I have added proof that we can win the battle to develop our country and alleviate poverty.

Thanks to patriot Milinda Moragoda for his  words of wisdom.

Garvin Karunaratne 28/06/2019

Former Government Agent, Matara District

Author of

How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of success(Godages) 2006

How the IMF Sabotages Third World Development (Kindle/Godages)2017