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Lanka’s poor surge by 4 Mn to 31-pct of population: Survey
ECONOMYNEXT –Sri Lanka’s poor has surged by 4 million to 7 million since 2019 to 31 percent of the population in 2023, a survey has found as the country was hit by the worst currency crisis in the history of its central bank.
A 10,000 person survey by LirneAsia, a regional policy research organization, found that 33 percent of the respondents had skipped a meal and 47 percent reduced their meal sizes, after the currency crisis.About 27 percent of adults restricted their meals to feed children. The survey was conducted from October 10, 2022 to May 12, 2023.
Sri Lanka started an output gap targeting exercise (Keynesian stimulus) printing large volumes of money and a so-called flexible exchange rate backed by inconsistent policy collapsed in 2022 from 200 to 360 to the US dollar, tearing apart the monetary foundations of families, destroying real salaries and jobs.
Food prices soared partly due to a global commodity bubble fired by the Federal Reserve and also import restrictions from forex shortages and disruption to agriculture from a fertilizer ban.
Agro-chemicals were bannd to ‘save’ 300 to 400 million dollars in foreign exchange, the government said at the time.Rohan Samarajiva Chair of LirneAsia said he searched for historical data and found a thesis done by one M Salgado, which estimated gross domestic product during the Great Depression.
“He talked about the Great Depression affecting Sri Lanka and how our per capita income, which was about 80 dollars, went down by about half over a period of four years,” Samarajiva told a forum where research findings was released.
The Great Depression was a ‘deflationary collapse’ during the 1930s came in the wake of the Federal Reserve firing the ‘roaring 20s bubble’ after accidentally inventing the policy rate giving power to economists to mis-target interest rates, analysts have said.
Sri Lanka at the time however did not have a central bank to trigger a currency collapse. Food prices fell steeply during the Great depression. In a central bank currency crisis, the worst hit are wage earners whose salaries do not go up as prices rise with a collapse of the value of domestic money.
From March 2023, Sri Lanka central bank has appreciated the currency with deflationary policy, allowing food prices to fall.
In Sri Lanka poverty among Sri Lanka’s plantation worker families was already high at 31 percent by 2019, based on a household income and expenditure survey (HIES 2019) of the state statistics office.
“This has worsened in 2023. Now more than half our estate workers are living below the poverty line,” Tharaka Amarsinghe, a researcher at LIRNEasia said.
“Now more than half our estate workers are living below the poverty line.”
In the rest of rural Sri Lanka poverty has doubled from 15 to 32 percent from 2019 to 2023.In urban areas, which are densely populated, poverty tripled to 6 to 18 percent.About 32 percent of families had sold household assets and 50 percent had run down their savings.
Another 6 percent did not send their children to school, indicating that 203,000 children did not attend school. Parents had mentioned that they did not have exercise books and had to make up books from empty pages of old books, according to a panelist.Sri Lanka has a number of government income support programs, chief among them known as Samurdhi.
The survey found that 1.7 million families got Samurdhi benefits but only 40 percent were poor or below the official poverty line Gayani Hurrulle, Senior Research Manager at LirneAsia said. About 4 percent were in the richest income decile, 5 percent were in the next.
Only 17 percent who were on Samurdhi benefits have exited the program. Opaque criteria including attending political meetings were used by Samurdhi officials to admit new applicants, respondents to the survey had said.
… reminds AKD led over 560 protests during Yahapalanaya
Former Yahapalana Minister and United Republican Front (URF) leader Patali Champika Ranawaka yesterday (19) alleged that the JVP, which carried out over 560 protests during the 2015-2019 period, was now bent on preventing the Opposition from exercising its democratic right to protest.
Recalling the declaration made by the JVP at the height of the violent protest campaign in July 2022 that it would set the Parliament ablaze, the former parliamentarian lashed out at the JVP-led administration for using the police excessively to curb political opposition. Ranawaka said this while addressing the media at the former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Flower Road Office .
Commenting on the protest campaign launched by the Maha Sangha, demanding presidential pardon for General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Ven. Galagotaatte Gnanasara, the ex-Colombo District lawmaker alleged that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake used a combination of police, investigative units and JVP cadres to break up the monks’ protest. The government went to the extent of compelling the JVP/NPP-run Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) to deprive the peaceful protesters of basic toilet facilities, he alleged.
The government’s actions proved that only those with prior approval from JVP Pelawatte headquarters could launch protests in Colombo, its suburbs or in the provinces. The police have become a political tool in the hands of the JVP, the ex-Minister said. (SF)
By SK Samaranayake
Six people were killed and seven others injured when a speeding bulker lorry carrying cement and concrete ploughed into several vehicles and a shop on the Kandy-Jaffna A9 road at Kurugoda, Akurana, yesterday (19).
Four of the victims, two women and two men, died on the spot in the accident which occurred around 10.30 am, according to Alawathugoda Police.
Police said the bulker, travelling at high speed from the Matale direction, collided with three three-wheelers, two motorcycles and two lorries before veering off the road and crashing into a commercial establishment.
Five of the injured were rushed to the National Hospital of Kandy, where hospital sources said two remained in critical condition.
The bodies of the four victims were placed at the Akurana Hospital, where two others, who suffered minor injuries, were also receiving treatment.
The driver of the bulker was arrested by the Alawathugoda Police Traffic Division and is to be produced before court.
Investigations are being conducted under the supervision of Central Province Senior DIG Lalith Pathinayake.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
owledging that there had been an administrative lapse on the part of the President’s Office in 2019 when Maithripala Sirisena granted presidential pardon to Ven. Gnanasara Thera, Convener of Janathawadi Joint Opposition Prof. G.L. Peiris yesterday (19) urged President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to rectify whatever those shortcomings and release the General Secretary of Bodu Bala Sena.
Addressing the media at the former President Ranil Wickrekmesinghe’s Flower Road Office, Prof. Peiris emphasized that it was not fair to hold Ven. Gnanasara accountable for lapse or technical fault of others at the Presidential Secretariat during President Sirisena’s tenure.
Prof. Peiris was flanked by UNP Chairman Wajira Abeywardena and United Republican Front (URF) leader Patali Champika Ranawaka.
The fresh appeal was made on behalf of Ven. Gnanasara in the wake of President Dissanayake and JVP heavyweight Anura Kumara Dissanayake ruling out fresh presidential pardon for the monk. Minister Lal Kantha declared that the government couldn’t under any circumstances meet the continuing monks’ protest demanding Ven. Gnanasara’s release. President Dissanayake dismissed repeated appeals for Ven. Gnanasara’s release when he addressed the NPP really in Badulla.
Sirisena granted presidential pardon in May 2019 even before he completed a year of his six-year term of rigorous imprisonment for contempt of court during proceedings of the media personality Prageeth Ekneligoda’s 2010 January disappearance in the Homagama Magistrate’s court.
At the onset of the regular weekly briefing, Prof. Peiris said that he would report to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) today (20) morning as requested by the commission. “The CIABOC wanted to record my statement regarding a meeting I chaired at the ministry after the conclusion of the war in 2009 pertaining to an ongoing investigation.”
Commenting further on the imprisonment of Ven. Gnanasara, the former parliamentarian said that President Sirisena intervened following a spate of requests made on behalf of BBS General Secretary by the Mahanayakes, Anunayakes and other Maha Sangha.
The Supreme Court on 10 September, 2026 rescinded the presidential pardon granted in late May 2019.
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Ranawaka accuses govt. of using JVP cadres and police to suppress political opponents
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Prof. Peiris, summoned by CIABOC, appeals for Ven. Gnanasara’s release
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