“True terror is to wake up one morning and find your high school class running the country” – Kurt Vonnegut

This is the sort of feeling that most people had when it was announced last week that the General Secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is to chair a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) that also includes nine SLPP members out of a proposed 14-member committee to inquire into the reasons that led to Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy. It is these absurdities that occur at regular intervals that continue to defy the odds in accelerating this nation’s descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. It also underlines the fact that despite the gravity of the situation, party interests still supersede national interest. 

Notwithstanding the fact that there is a palpable sense of economic recovery with the easing of inflationary pressure and lending rates, what is cause for concern, given the precarious nature of the recovery, is the absence of critically-important political reforms that must take place in tandem with economic reforms. While the economic reforms have more or less been dictated by the IMF, the accompanying political reforms must necessarily come from within the administration itself, if it is sincere in the desire to see the reforms bear fruit.

It is clear that the primary motivation to appoint this latest PSC is to fulfil a key requirement of the IMF to inquire into the causes of Sri Lanka’s economic catastrophe. By appointing a partisan committee of this nature, it appears that the administration is confident that it can deploy the same tactics it uses to hoodwink the people to hoodwink the IMF as well. Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether the Bretton Woods twin will buy the report if and when it does materialise.

One of the members of this committee is in fact the former Minister of Agriculture who presided over the disastrous fertiliser ban which later became one of the primary contributors to the collapse of the economy. As Minister, he also presided over the controversial Chinese fertiliser ship saga, which to date remains in a state of limbo with $ 6.9 million having been paid upfront for fertiliser that is yet to be delivered, two years down the line. He will now sit in judgement as to what went wrong!

Even though ruling party politicians continue to argue that the domestic economic crisis was precipitated by global events, most others are privy to the fact that the crisis was essentially precipitated by Sri Lanka’s debt unsustainability, which in turn was critically impacted by flawed policy decisions, the combined impact of which was then subjected to global events including the pandemic. In fact, it is stated as much in the very first paragraph of the IMF agreement. Therefore, just as it is necessary to seal the holes that caused the economy to bleed and ultimately run dry through economic reform, it is equally important to take care of the things that caused the holes in the first place, through political reform.

Today the narrative has been altered to such an extent that it is as if it is the ordinary people who are at fault and signed up for the mega loans to build white elephants that resulted in the country ending up bankrupt. That is why it is they who have now been made to foot the bill, while no attempt whatsoever is being made to recover stolen assets, curb corruption, or secure compensation due to the country from at least two shipping disasters. Therefore, it can be predicted that the ‘findings’ of the PSC will also point in that direction if the composition of the committee is anything to go by.

Given this narrative it is pertinent to question, even at this late stage, the quantum of Sri Lanka’s total debt that has actually been utilised towards developing livelihoods of ordinary people so that they could be financially independent and actively contribute towards the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Such an audit will likely reveal the sum to be negligible, thereby reinforcing the fact that poverty has consistently and systematically been weaponised by almost all governments, in order to secure electoral benefits. Scrapping of the Samurdhi welfare benefit scheme in favour of the latest such endeavour branded as Aswesuma is yet another example of the continuation of this practice.

According to the latest mantra of the regime, Sri Lanka can look forward to being a ‘developed nation’ by 2048 if the current economic reform agenda is pursued. However, there is no accompanying enthusiasm to pursue a political reform agenda that will ensure that the economic reform agenda will not be derailed in the next 25 years leading up to 2048. 

According to Parliamentarian Harsha de Silva, Sri Lanka’s economy must grow by a minimum of 6% on average until 2048 if that promised ‘developed’ status is to be achieved. With the economy currently in the doldrums and no political reforms on the horizon to prevent or at least mitigate the possibility of a recurrence of what caused the current crisis, it sure looks like the people are being sold a dummy yet again.

It goes without saying that averaging 6% GDP growth continuously for 25 years is quite a stretch in itself, in the absence of political safeguards that will ensure critically-important political stability to drive such consistent growth. Besides, the ‘2048 carrot’ seems that much more utopian given that it is being presented by a regime that has effectively folded the electoral map and kicked aside the need for a valid people’s mandate. How such an administration can guarantee the required political stability to ensure rapid economic growth over an extended period only time will tell.

The only thing the administration has done so far by way of political reform to facilitate economic reform has been to present the Anti-Corruption Bill to Parliament. But last week even this half-hearted attempt came a cropper when the ruling party suddenly decided not to proceed with the third reading and postpone it to 19 July, for reasons best known to it. 

The cat however jumped out of the bag when the Justice Minister, who claimed to have worked tirelessly to draft the bill and who was present in Parliament when his party’s own Leader of the House was proposing the postponement of the debate, rose to his feet and stated that he saw no reason why its passage should be postponed. This episode yet again pointed to an external element directing the affairs of Parliament, making the current administration look like mere puppets and the Parliament, that is supposed to be the repository of the peoples’ sovereignty, being reduced to a plaything of a regime that has long lost its mandate.

After all, what is a country if not for its people and their interests? By routinely disregarding or going against the wishes of the majority of the people, can our Parliament and Cabinet of Ministers, who routinely raise their hands like wound-up toys to what passes for legislation these days, say that they have defended or stood for the rights and interests of the people?

Besides, what is the purpose of MPs maintained at huge public cost even during these difficult times, if they cannot fulfil their primary purpose of representing the interests of the people? The 40 MPs who were conspicuous by their absence during the vote on Domestic Debt Restructuring despite a presidential diktat to be present in the House, goes to show just how helpless the ordinary people are.