Professor Sunil J. Wimalawansa

Sri Lanka is at a critical junction in moving into the right recovery path or going down further to compete with other sunken countries. During economic crises, hunger becomes more prevalent, driven by the inability to afford basic needs like food due to unemployment, lack of savings, and limited resources like home gardening.

According to reports, recently, some families have increasingly turned to desperate income-generating activities such as pawning jewelry and prostitution to cover essential expenses and living. However, these measures offer only temporary relief, are unsustainable, and often deepen the vicious cycle of poverty, despair, and, tragically, suicide.

Blunders by Sri Lankan governments

Recent governments in Sri Lanka have repeatedly blundered in policies and decision-making, often favoring their personal interests while engaging in alleged corruption and malpractice. Misguided priorities, greed, and lavish lifestyles fueled by commission-based loans (technically considered as bribes) for unnecessary projects that failed to generate returns have inevitably led the country to bankruptcy. This was fueled by allocating lucrative contracts without official bids and cronies who advised successive presidents to gain what they wanted rather than benefiting the country.

Additionally, these administrations neglected ongoing crises—continued to take high-interest loans despite escalating debt, bloated the government structures (i.e., increasing its employees from 520,000  to 1.5 million over two decades, expanded for political gain), high unemployment rates, low productivity, and crop output, over-regulation, declining exports, and a series of manufactured financial scandals that drained the national treasury.

Successive recent governments in Sri Lanka made blunders in policies and decisions to favour themselves, compromising national assets and independence, and have engaged in alleged pilferage and many wrong-doings. Besides wrong priorities, greediness, and cushy lives based on (commission-based) borrowed money for unwarranted projects that failed to generate income to pay back loans, it is unsurprising that the country declared bankruptcy. In addition, governments failed to address ongoing crises, including over-blown governments (unnecessarily, excessive employment as political favours), printing money that increased inflation, high unemployment rates, over-regulation, subsequent dwindling exports, and multiple manufactured financial scandals draining the treasury.

Corrupt advisors and government failures

Beyond the government’s failures in economic and social policies, it abolished some key institutional structures, such as independent commissions and councils that were supposed to oversee government activities and contracts. The government continued to engage in poor and biased decision-making and failed to establish a safety net. Besides, it provided no incentives or encouragement for family self-sufficiency, including home gardening, worsening the hunger crisis.

Misguided policies, including the flawed fertilizer ban amid the pandemic, caused a significant drop in crop output and tea exports. Not only politicians (especially those handful of members of the parliament who misled the former president) but also entrenched bureaucrats have contributed to the prevailing food crisis. Through the independent judiciary system, the next president must make these perpetrators accountable for their wrongdoings. Ironically, those who advised the president on these disastrous decisions, including members of parliament, happily remain in government, a situation uniquely emblematic of Sri Lanka’s political landscape.

Governments in Sri Lanka failed to ask themselves if we have adequate plans and means of livelihood for the vulnerable population and have taken steps to protect vulnerable groups in a crisis. What happens to food security, access to medicine, energy, and sovereignty in a crisis, which the Constitution should uphold? Identifying root causes and implementing corrective actions are essential, yet transparency and public accountability are often lacking.

Poverty, hunger, and the lack of safety net

Moreover, it lacked intellect and a moral obligation to create a safety net for vulnerable populations. The question arises: do citizens, especially children, have the right not to be hungry? This is not just a moral claim but a critical question of policy priorities—deciding which institutional resources, like school meal programs, should be implemented to ensure feasible and cost-effective food security.

Does the government have a policy or threshold for public intervention in securing basic needs like affordable food, essential medicines, and healthcare for the public at large? The public must make politicians and bureaucrats accountable for failing to prevent bankruptcy, excessive unemployment, and starvation. What measures have been implemented to counteract malnutrition and famine, particularly affecting children and pregnant mothers? The forthcoming general election is the right place to remove dead wood and corrupt parliamentarians from the arena. Such folks should not have a place in any part of the government or private sector; they are unreformable.

Over-blown government wasting taxpayer funds

Despite the severity of the situation, the government continues to waste tremendous amounts of public funds on unnecessary ventures, including extravagant foreign trips with families and maintaining extensive security for officials and friends using public funds. No one has taken any actions to curtail this wastage.

If funds are scarce, why hasn’t the government reduced its size, curbed waste, or limited imports of non-essential luxury items, including high-end cars? The ongoing gross mismanagement under the unelected caretaker administration failed to implement laws to protect the public and reduce spending. Collectively, these have led to bankruptcy and exacerbated the ongoing crisis.

Notable failures of the president and the cabinet

Since taking over the leadership position after the abandonment by the former president, shockingly, no effective measures have been taken to reduce government expenses and prioritize essential needs like food, medicine, and fuel/energy. Like those students who participated in Model UN training programs, a group of intelligent high school students would have made more prudent decisions than the current government, proactively alleviating multiple problems.

Instead, the current government was pre-occupied with enacting laws to protect itself, increasing its perks, and engaging in free foreign trips rather than taking care of its economy and people. The current leadership’s incompetence underscores a profound failure, demonstrating that an intelligent and responsible approach could dramatically reduce government expenditure and prioritize essential needs to prevent hunger. After reviewing the policies and comments, it is striking that none in the current leadership, including the opposition, seems capable of doing so.

The catastrophic failures of recent governments do not absolve them from their moral responsibility to protect citizens from hunger. They must be made accountable through the court of law. The suffering of the majority in Sri Lanka is a direct consequence of governmental neglect and misguided policies, nepotism, and the stunning lack of meritocracy, highlighting the urgent need to change, starting after the presidential election and subsequent general elections.

Expectations from the New President 

We, the people, genuinely expect a few fundamental changes from the new president. He must dramatically reduce the government’s cost, especially the size and bloated military. He should ensure all government appointments are based on merit, ability, and proven productivity—not on nepotism, simply on seniority or duration of service. A system must be established for each government employee to provide a set of goals to achieve by the end of each year. Change of status— like promotion, salary increase, etc., must be based on this objective evaluation, which must be made at the end of the year through an annual evaluation.

It is critical to re-establish complete judicial independence, independent commissions and councils, and limit the number of ministers to 16. The next president must implement these through executive orders followed by gazetting them within the first four weeks. However, suppose he fails or refuses to implement these fundamental governance changes as the voters demand. In that case, he must be held accountable through the courts or face the abolition of the executive presidency. Moreover, his political party must also be made accountable (and defeated) at the next general election. The new president must also resolve to maintain a non-aligned foreign policy, reject any foreign military bases and occupancy in Sri Lanka, and ensure total independence, governing the country under one flag, one anthem, and one law for all citizens.