BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

Before coming to power, members of the current government promised various policy actions to people, and now it has come the right time for evaluating such policies whether they were fulfilled or initiated to work on. This is a critical question to people as they are eager to see the performance of the government. The nature of politics in Sri Lanka is giving many promises without evaluating whether they could fulfill or ability to at least initiate them during be in power. This is the misunderstanding or misreading of the term democracy. The promises were based on the policy statement that was called a Prosperous Vision, voters had not a clear understanding of the vision and the mission that was so vague as the document didn’t specifically express what kind of work will be fulfilled.  Now, the time is evaluating promises made to the public and the compact policy statement needs to allocate the corporate role to each minister.

Despite evaluating the process, the media highlights that there are conflicts among the cabinet team members that have not been expected by people when they were voting at the election. For example, Mr. Wimal Weerasinghe promised to establish an Industrial Development Bank as the country needs medium-term credits for industrial development purposes which could not be offered by trading banks with short-terms, and on-demand liabilities base. Without monitoring the promise Mr.Wimal Weerasinghe gives lorry talks on positions of Podujana Peramuna.

The policy conflicts are a common nature of the democratic system, the nature of conflicts in Sri Lanka seem to be gone beyond the limits. When investigating the elected governments since 1947 it discloses that Sri Lanka’s politics is subject to division and people don’t care whether divisions were based on the philosophical points of the parties or any other matters.  People want to do work on the mission that was given at the election.  The objectives and activities were not properly defined in the vision, and people have faced a giant confusion about how to evaluate the implementation of the government policy process.  Many works in Sri Lanka cannot complete in a short period as they are involved in macroeconomic factors.  

Is there a team to evaluate the policy process relates the prosperous vision and who are the members of the evaluating team is undisclosed truth to people, and state ministers are responsible for initiating work for the mission. Some state ministers are going behind media men to give voice cuts and others look to react for the original voice cuts. That is why Sri Lanka wants a partial dictatorship to avoid this type of joke.

The obvious nature is State and Cabinet ministers use to give voice cuts to media and they bring points that should be talked about in the darkness as they are contrary to the original statement of prosperity. The best example was the conflict between Mr. Wimal Weerasinghe and the secretary of Podujana Peramuna.  Do these issues need to publish in media or they should be talked about in a closed-door room to evaluate and kids who are in grade 12 political science class know the statement of Lord Ramse McDonald that ministers, you can talk whatever in this room, but when you go out you should be abiding by one statement should express to people.  It seems that the idea of co-responsibility has deteriorated among the members of the cabinet, and it could be further illustrated by a traditional saying if the fence and the embankment ate the paddy cultivation whom to complain about the problem?       

In this environment, it is difficult to make a judgment on the role played by the ministers since they have been appointed to the role. There is no difference between ministers of this government and that previous government the old poet that said until the role was achieved all do misleading and the truth in the politics in Sri Lanka without difference whether they are in government side or the opposition. All lie to the public with a view to gaining power and in the democratic system rulers as well as the public are behaving like crooks as stated by Machiavelli.

It is a truth the entire world has suffered from the Covid pandemic and Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa has given the leadership to tackle the issues. Policy development, policy monitoring, and remedial management are equally vital actions to the government and the big bosses of the government need to engage in this role.