Mr. President, whom are you fooling?

The 69-minute speech delivered by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa last Friday was another false hope for the citizenry. Keeping technical defects aside, the public was anticipating an announcement about reduction of prices of essential items at the least. The public anticipated that the President would consider giving more relief schemes for those who cannot afford a meal during the pandemic. But instead, what the public did hear was how difficult it has been for him to do what he’s doing amidst a pandemic.

People didn’t want to know how many billions were spent on projects such as housing etc. when people themselves are mortgaging their jewellery to feed their families. The people didn’t want to hear him repeating his elections manifesto and ticking off projects that are already in progress.

All those are commendable Mr. President, but a day or two after your speech, it was revealed that some of your statistics weren’t accurate. For instance the President said that in 2015 when the Maithripala Sirisena government took over, Sri Lanka had a strong economy and that the economic growth rate was around 7% and that it was second to China in the Asian region. But Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP Dr. Harsha de Silva questioned the President about this statistic. Referring to a World Bank Report, Dr. de Silva said that just after the war, the country obtained loans and the economic growth rate was increasing.“it was at 9.1% in 2012 and dropped to 3.4% in 2013 during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure. In 2014, it was 5%. Therefore this shows that the President’s statistics weren’t accurate.” Dr. de Silva also mentioned several other economic statistics that weren’t accurate.

The President also mentioned that 10,000 schools have been provided with fiber optic technology. But Ceylon Teachers’ Union Secretary Joseph Stalin pointed out that the total number of schools in the country is around 10,165. He said that according to the Education Ministry reports, around 2000 schools have poor mobile reception and students cannot connect to the internet to attend online classes.

Mr. President, these are tough times for everybody and failure to deliver promises is understood. But misleading the public with inaccurate information isn’t the right thing to do at this moment.