New laws governing development in post-election period to make it more progressive

New laws governing development will be introduced following the election of the new government. “We have already drafted the legislation to be submitted to the new parliament for sanction,” said Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Affairs, Harsha de Silva addressing professionals and industry leaders on the topic of a ‘ knowledge- based, highly competitive social market economy’ in Colombo last week.

He said no major foreign investment came into the country during the last 10 years although the German Technical Institute was built more than four decades ago to provide employment and technical training for the youths of the country.

“We could have built 25 such German technical training centres during the past 10 years. As someone remarked the previous government was not in good terms with the German government but I said that they were in good terms with China to build more training centres like the German tech in Sri Lanka,” he said.

The Deputy Minister said the economic policies pursued by the earlier Rajapaksa government were based on the expansion of the government sector and not for the benefit of the people. It was for the benefit of friends, relatives and party supporters. What that government did was to send letters to the Ministry of Home Affairs to hire 10,000 or 20,000 unemployed graduates and show the unemployment problem was solved. “You can have such type of solutions but where do we end up with. That was the issue. That is why we are really committed to creating a highly competitive economy in the country. We knew the challenges ahead while moving up the ladder. We need to create reliable and accountable institutions. We have to depoliticize them so that they could function as they should, whether it is the divisional Secretary office, the Pensions office, the Samurdhi office or the Road Development Authority. These institu- tions are run inefficiently,” he added.

He said people keep on asking why the wrongdoers were not sent to jail but this is because unlike in the past, the judiciary is now independent and they decide on matters of adjudication.

He said the previous government acquired the private banks through the backdoor by using funds of the Employees Provident Fund, Employees Trust Fund, National Savings Bank and the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation and handed them to their friends.

The massive expenditure programmes undertaken by the Road Development Authority and the Urban Development Authority did not result in an improvement of the conditions of the common men and women but a selected few individuals connected to the government.

Referring to an incident that took place in the Parliament somewhere in 2011, he said a Minister abruptly announced that he was going to bring new laws that will expropriate 36 companies which was a deadly blow to (FDI) investors. Foreign investors were in a quandary whether to invest in Sri Lanka or not. “However our government is absolutely committed to protect people’s rights. Take for instance the eviction of people from their dwellings for development work. True enough that development should take place but according a national re-settlement plan.”

He said lots of people today do not have a title to their land granted by the state from 1931. “Our policy will be bestow title deeds to these people so as to propel a market for lands in future. There are more than five million lands without titles.”

Although the private sector complains that the government is not channeling enough money for education etc, the state is faced with a hopeless situation as the tax revenue is less than 10.1 per cent of the GDP.

Tax avoidance was a huge problem and having serviced the debt payment there was nothing left in the coffers for development, he said.