The migrant workers and the economy
If the Government is bending backwards to facilitate a piece of Sri Lanka’s real estate to a Chinese company – for 99 years at a price tag of US$ 1.4 billion, one can only imagine what it must do to Sri Lanka’s own migrant workers who keep sending as much as US$ 7 billion each year to the country as remittances making the Chinese ‘sale’ seem a pittance in comparison.
In return, next to nothing is done for their benefit. MPs import duty free cars with that hard earned money and sell it overnight making a ‘killing’, the country imports its oil and food with that money, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just does not bother to send more women officers to Sri Lanka missions in West Asia and the Gulf region where thousands of women work so they can provide them some assistance and comfort when in distress. These migrant workers do not even have a vote, and Governments are probably reluctant to give them the franchise fearing it might boomerang on them for not doing enough.
Today marks International Day of the Migrant Worker and it is closely associated not just with the workers toiling overseas, but refugees from conflict zones around the world; those from poverty stricken nations; and those just fleeing their country because their political leaders have given them no hope for a bright future despite all the rhetoric and the hollow promises and platitudes from public platforms.
Only a fortnight ago, the Australian Head of Border Protection Operations told he was at a loss to understand why Sri Lankans were still trying to enter his country illegally. He was obviously being too diplomatic. The answer is just too obvious. Despite all the ‘Pampoori” of the politicians from all sides, a local idiom that means ‘idle boasts’, the people have lost confidence in all of these politicians leading them to the Promised Land. The ‘Gateway of South Asia’ that is talked about seems to be the ‘Get Away’ instead. That has to be a sobering thought to the powers that be.
Sri Lanka faces danger even in this export industry of the migrant worker. The lack of skilled and semi-skilled workers now opting to drive tuk-tuks and make a quick buck at home instead, with more restrictions on women workers going abroad for work, and the slump in world oil prices having a direct bearing on West Asian and Gulf economies, Sri Lanka’s reliance on easy foreign exchange from our migrant workers is limited.
It is with this hard earned foreign remittances of our migrant workers that the country is kept afloat, not by so-called foreign investors, aid and loans either by the Chinese or the IMF, nor by PPPs. In return, the 2017 budget has allocated a beggarly sum of less than 0.1 per cent of the budget for their welfare and well-being. That is the gratitude successive Governments have paid to these men and women sweating it out in inhospitable environments.
On this Global Migrant Labour Day, spare a thought for those Sri Lankans who are keeping this country’s economy afloat. No. 08, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 02. P.O. Box 1136, Colombo editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2331276 news@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479332, 2328889, 2331276 features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479312, 2328889,2331276 pictures@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479323, 2479315 sports@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479311 bt@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479319 funtimes@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479337, 2331276 2479540, 2479579, 2479725 2479629, 2477628, 2459725