Cabbages and kings

By Tennekone Rusiripala

Among the many topics of interest doing the rounds, some are interesting revelations and others, repetitions and cliches. I chose to deal with a few, regarding recent developments, for the current write up.

Yugadanavi episode, a mid-night scandal

This reminds us of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the Duke feels that his word should prevail as law.

People who come to power with thumping majorities think they are all powerful. Hence the springing of the Yugadanavi agreement and the fiasco following it. There are many facets to the dispute surrounding the Yugadanavi affair. Engineers of the Ceylon

Electricity Board (CEB) are up in arms on the line of Trade Union oppositions attributing National Interest. Certainly, Trade Unions are forerunners in instances of new policy enunciations. Their role in such falls within the scope of ‘unions are partners of social progress’. But in this instance their protest actions against the Yugadanavi devolved into other grievance areas such as the plan for restructuring the CEB administration. For those viewing the matter from outside, it appears that the CEB has to invariably introduce some urgent measures to reorganise its operations.

We may need to write several chapters to explain this state of affairs properly but it would suffice, for the current purpose, to state that the Treasury, state banks and the domestic debt position are all severely affected due to the operational maladies of the CEB over a long period of time. Therefore, the concerns of the CEB Engineers Union regarding the restructuring plan have to be fully explained before they engage in any protest campaigns. Otherwise their objectives and national interests may be subject to misinterpretation. Because there are many experiences of unions vociferously opposing reorganisation plans because of their rights and privileges, which they would like to safeguard at any cost to the nation or otherwise.

Then comes our representatives in parliament. Some oppose anything and everything. Certain others who oppose something to secure their precarious standing to prevent the fall of the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head, because of the situation they are facing for something very bad that could happen to some of them without the favour of the government. The Easter Sunday fracas is still hot!

Then there are others who truly want to defy anything that happens bypassing them. This agreement, according to the news, has been brewed, manipulated and entered into disregarding the existence of many, who are presumed important pillars in the government structure. They have chosen to oppose it knowing very well that it is as risky for them as it is for the government to overlook them. It is also possible that they are a part of a power struggle inside.

There is also a group hell-bent on provoking the elimination of appendages of the government by inciting them to oppose the agreement so that they will be stronger in the government once the victims leave.

The grand finale was the tabling of a copy of the Agreement, hitherto kept behind closed doors, by the JVP leader Anura Kumara in the Parliament during the budget debate.

But what transpired was not as dramatic as expected. Other than to pinpoint one major feature related to the agreement, that there is a non-disclosure clause, he failed to highlight any adverse terms or conditions embodied in the agreement that are harmful to the nation or national interest. This is not the first time that the government entered into agreements with international companies as investors on a 49 to 51 percent sharing basis. There cannot be anything so detrimental in that. But what is important is whether there are any conditions that go against the sovereign rights of the country or the broader public interest. The failure to highlight any of those leaves us with many unanswered questions.

Foreign Exchange crisis and Reserves position

Many critics from the opposition kept on hitting at the fact that the country’s foreign reserves have reached an unprecedented low. But here again they failed or ignored to spell out their alternate options except to reiterate their ex-boss’s view of suggesting to seek solace in the IMF. Mr. Wickremesinghe, as is well known, will have no qualms about the matter because of his inclinations towards the west. But there is no logic in trying that as the remedy of the last resort, when we can effect or attempt to effect some measures, with long term benefits, through possible inward domestic adjustments. If we can use our bilateral arrangements to sort out matters no one can find fault.

But the CBSL has to review the foreign remittances from those employed abroad by offering meaningful incentives to promote official inward remittances. An incentive will be effective and attractive only if it provides concessions out of the normal. There is no logic in pushing them to chase behind Rs. 8 or 10 more when the sharks outside are ever ready to offer about Rs 30 to 40 per USD. Laws and restrictions play a secondary role, as we are aware, orderliness has to be in place before anything else. In the modern world, people have many avenues for conducting transactions. It was a welcome move by the Governor to have explained the current requirement of converting foreign exchange balances in the accounts of local banks, which the commercial banks have been mishandling. The need to convert the balances apply only to export earnings and investment funds. Even in the case of export earnings there is leeway for the exporters to utilise the monies for their raw material for future productions.

We remember the time Dr. N.M Perera, as the Minister of Finance, introduced the Convertible Rupee Account system. If you bring in 100 net you are entitled to use 25 without any restrictions. This was a good scheme because it provided some relief to genuine foreign exchange earners.

Government Service

In this country any reference to certain areas, however justified or in whatever context, is deemed controversial. The recent reference to Public Sector employees, by the Finance Minister is one such example. There was a big furore following his reference. Some said it is a belittling of the Public Sector employees. This is real balderdash. The Public Sector of this country is badly in need of a complete revamping. Few dare to touch this or even talk about it. I am personally aware that topmost authorities are well aware of this but are scared to initiate any action. Let us follow Newton’s Third Law in this regard; ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’. Similarly for any thesis there will be an antithesis.

I once met a President to whom I mentioned that there is a crying need for a national wage policy because of certain serious irregularities in the wages and salaries structures in the country. I mentioned a few places where the wages and salaries were extremely disproportionate with the rest of the State Sector, although they too were SOEs (highly loss making). To my extreme delight and surprise this President complimented my view by mentioning a few other places that he knew to have this aberration. I requested him to initiate some action during his tenure, but to no avail.

Our Public Service is one of the most poorly paid sectors. It is also ipso facto a most poorly performing sector. If the country has to move forward what is required is not to fatten this white elephant any more but to make full use of it, looking after their welfare as well as improving their performance. I for one hail and appreciate the concerns expressed by the Finance Minister about this need and look forward to immediate drastic action in this regard. I trust that the government would seriously address the national wage policy issue and bring some uniformity to the salary structures of all Public Sector bodies, without any distinction as to whether they make profits or not.

Investments and BOI

We noted an ongoing fracas in the BOI, the institution that is created to monitor, promote and develop investments (FDI) in the country. The entire Board of Directors tendered their resignations but we also heard that the resignations were not accepted.

This sends out many adverse signals. For a country like ours, struggling to attract foreign investments, to come out of an economic crisis, the resignation threat of the BOI bosses conveys a negative message to prospective investors. They must be thinking, ‘why the hell should we dump our funds into a country where, leave alone anything else, even the body corporate set up to promote investments is not stable?’

Secondly, the refusal to accept their resignations and requesting them to continue in their posts indicates that from the government’s point of view their performance is OK but from the point of view of the BOI bosses the Government does not reciprocate their service.

We do not know why the government wants them to continue but their performance record is far from satisfactory. The BOI is one place which has miserably failed in the basics to revamp the country’s economy. Their failure became obvious during the pandemic, through lapses in agricultural production, transport systems and distribution mechanisms, non-availability of large scale well organised agricultural products, producers causing havoc, adverse effects on livelihoods, inflationary trends and basically putting in jeopardy the food security of the whole country. There is a wide spectrum and a multifaceted scope which the BOI never addressed, with the future of the country in mind. I have witnessed many times investors being turned away or discouraged due to the want of land for development. Despite repeated requests being made, in this regard, the BOI has failed, to date, to develop a Land Bank, a database of land available for development. Once at a meeting several years ago, when I heard a prospective foreign investor being told that the BOI was unable to fulfil his land requirement, I had to jump in and challenge the sitting authorities,”Give me one week, I will give you thousands of acres of land suitable for development activities within a 50-mile radius from Colombo.”

We have a Land Reform Commission owning tens of thousands of acres of land idling for several decades, the exact locations of which are not clear even to some of the officials. It is an invaluable national treasure. If developed properly, we need not import any agricultural products. The issue is that investors will have to go through a broker who will find land for them. The BOI was deaf and blind to these ground realities. The problem with them is that they are not sensible and practical people, with their feet on the ground. Recruiting many specialists will have hardly any effect. You can never develop this country without addressing the resource base, specially our priceless wealth in land.

Instead of focusing only on highly sophisticated areas, let there be new thinking and approach to study, examine and implement development programmes in keeping with our culture, environment and future human trends.

To make a long story short, the President’s announcement of looking into the prospects of harnessing and developing the higher education system with private sector investments, is a welcome move to address many of our present day as well as future needs. But he will need the services of some who are down-to-earth to successfully implement such a programme. Otherwise the same fate that befell the fertiliser issue will befall the issue of developing the higher education system.