Sri Lankans vote for peace and reduced COL:POLL

Sri Lankans this week voted for ‘peace and prosperity’, ‘end rising cost of living’ and ‘reducing government spending’ as their topmost priority and wishlist for the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, a joint poll by the Business Times (BT) and Research Consultancy Bureau (RCB) showed.

Conducted to gauge public views of a wish-list for the New Year, respondents’ views varied from the street poll conducted by the RCB to the email poll by the BT but in general ‘cost of living’ and ‘peace and prosperity’ were the most prominent. Respondents were given a wish-list of seven points: Peace and prosperity, End to violence and equal application of rule of law, Implement the LLRC report, End rising cost of living, Provide rights to all communities, Improve relations with all countries in the world, and Reduce expenditure of the government, and asked to decide which were the most important in their order of priority. (See results in Page 1 graphic)

Additional comments from re- spondents:

Wishes are like promises given at election time. The cost of living comes down when elections are nearing. It rises with the din of cricket match fever.

Give effect to the LLRC report, otherwise all other wishes will be meaningless. If this doesn’t happen the UN will try to influence us.

It is the politicians and the police who violate the law. They need to be disciplined before violence can be stopped.

There is no harm in having good relations with another country but not India. What India does is duplicity.

If the government stops wastage the COL can be tackled.

The LIOC is attempting to increase fuel by Rs 15 rupees and the government is not opposing it. This is no way to celebrate the New Year.

If you end violence and equally apply the law, everything else (on the wish-list) would automatically happen.

This is a very good wish-list. These if implemented will improve the investment climate, which in turn will help to attract investments particularly foreign direct investments.

FDIS are essential as most local investors do not possess the capital, technologies, management skills and global market access. Sri Lanka being a small country needs to cater to foreign demand (export) as the domestic demand is too small to speed up economic growth.

A greater flow of investments than the current rate of investment of about 28% of GDP is necessary to create employment opportunities, double the present level of real ( after adjustment to inflation) incomes and alleviate poverty, which is about 42% of the population (on the basis of US$2 a day per person)

If this wish-list is not implemented we might as well say goodbye to income growth and alleviation of poverty.

Enforcing equally the rule of law is the most important element for any society. Without this, none of the others (in the wish-list) is possible.