By Anuradha Hiripitiyage

The only way out of the economic crisis, brought about by COVID-19, was to use enormous amounts of money and assets that were hoarded by the super-rich, Education Secretary of the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) Pubudu Jayagoda said.

Jayagoda said that it was not only a solution for Sri Lanka but for the entire world.

Sri Lanka needed to change its entire state policy if it wanted to get out of the economic crisis it now faced, he added.

Jayagoda said that the entire state policy was geared to satisfy major companies and powerful individuals and the issues faced by the people were ignored.

“For example, this government reduced the tax imposed on companies by 50% but has increased taxes that affect the average person. This is not something this government alone has done. This is what all governments have done.”

Governments around the world should change their policies so that they could use the assets in the possession of the super-rich, Jayagoda said.

“All the wealth of the super-rich has come from the surplus value created by workers. We need to redistribute that wealth. But the current government policies are aimed at doing the opposite.”

The FSP Education Secretary also said that the spread of COVID-19 was about to spiral out of control. The health sector carried out about 13,000 PCR and Rapid Antigen Tests a day and between 700 and 900 tested positive, which was between 5-6%.

“According to the WHO this is a serious situation. It is true that we can’t keep the country open and protect people but I don’t think letting people die or suffer to keep the economy going is an acceptable solution. We can easily take a fraction of the wealth hoarded by the super-rich and use that to protect the people. But governments around the world are on the side of the rich.”

Jayagoda said that the price of rice were an example of how the powerful businessmen and the government had got together to fleece the average citizen. A kilo of Samba rice was over Rs. 100 and the average price of a kilo of Nadu was about Rs. 96.

“However, the paddy production in 2020 was 1.2 million metric tonnes more than 2019. Surely, this is not a problem of short supply. The prices have increased because the mill owners are manipulating the prices and the government has no distribution mechanism. Other government policies are the same. That’s why we need to overhaul the state policies to come out of the economic rut.”