People demand a genuine system change

It is seven days into the culturally and astrologically significant National New Year, celebrated mainly by Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus and four days after Easter Sunday celebrated by Christians in Sri Lanka on the eve of the third anniversary of the April 21, 2019 massacre, which killed 269 devotees and hotel guests and injured nearly 500. 

The Covid-19 onslaught compelled Sri Lankans to mark these significant events on a low key in 2020 and 2021 while this year they were celebrated in the midst of months-long countrywide street protests gaining momentum by the day and culminating in a massive peaceful protest by tens of thousands of people, especially a new generation of politically alert youth from all walks of life and from all parts of the country. The protesters, who have gathered on the Galle Face Green opposite the presidential secretariat, for the 12th consecutive day, are calling on the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government to step down saying, ‘enough is enough’.

Notwithstanding government propaganda, we are continuing to see long queues growing even longer at petrol sheds and domestic gas outlets. And not making life any easier is the severe shortage of essential commodities including milk powder, medicinal drugs and medical equipment, haphazard power cuts and the skyrocketing cost of living pushing prices beyond the reach of the middle and low income groups and daily wage earners while the dollar crunch is making it impossible to pay for much needed imports.

Meanwhile, a Reuters report datelined Colombo/London April 12 quotes Sri Lanka’s Central Bank as saying it had become “challenging and impossible” to repay the country’s external debt, as it tries to use its dwindling foreign exchange reserves to import essentials like food, medicines and fuel.

“We need to focus on essential imports and not have to worry about servicing external debt,” Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Governor, P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, told reporters. “It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible.”

In another turn of events, the government has sought a loan of US$700 million from the World Bank to revive the agricultural sector by providing imported agrochemicals for the forthcoming Yala season after the debacle suffered in the Maha season with almost a 40 to 50 per cent drop in the harvest as a consequence of the short-sighted, foolish and arbitrary decision by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban the import and use of chemical fertilizers, weedicides and pesticides. 

Agriculture Ministry Secretary D.M.L. Bandaranayake is reported to have said that assistance was being sought to support the cultivation of paddy, tea, vegetables, fruits and corn and that the loan would help the private sector to open Letters of Credit to import chemical fertilizer. The government’s move to reverse the ban on chemical fertilizer imports came in the wake of countrywide protests and severe crop losses during the Maha season. The ban was imposed in May last year. Mr. Bandaranayake said.

Underscoring the calamitous state of the country’s economy, for which the entire blame should be borne by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, is the decision to raise US$8 billion from the lease or sale of valuable public assets to bolster the rapidly dwindling foreign reserves, said a weekend media report quoting the newly-appointed economic advisory committee. Among the main items listed for such action were the Katunayake International Airport, the Mattala Airport and Ratmalana Airport while arrangements are said to have been made to hand over the Colombo North Port Development Project, Colombo Port City lands and shares of Sri Lanka Telecom and the  Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation.

Be that as it may, at long last and after much dilly dallying, vacillation, procrastination and contrary views expressed by the then finance minister Basil Rajapaksa on the one side and the then Central Bank governor Ajith Nivaard Cabral on the other, a government delegation led by finance Minister Ali Sabry is in Washington to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out Sri Lanka from the economic doldrums it has been pushed into because of the government’s fiscal mismanagement.

The people, especially the younger generation, at the end of their tether and browbeaten from all sides, are asking for a genuine system change and an end to the economic crisis and the era of shortages of essential commodities. They have rejected outright the current political system and the family rule, which they say have ruined this country. 

These are difficult and decisive times for Sri Lanka whose future destiny matters to all Sri Lankans, who have only this country to call their motherland.