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Temporary relief, permanent poverty 

15 Feb 2022

In a context where Sri Lankans are plunging further into poverty, State Minister of Samurdhi, Household Economy, Micro Finance, Self-Employment, and Business Development Shehan Semasinghe, on Sunday (13), announced that the Samurdhi beneficiary amount will be increased by 28% from this month.  This announcement comes in a context where almost all segments of the society are expecting the Government to alleviate the economic burden on their shoulders, not just Samurdhi beneficiaries, and are eagerly awaiting for the economy to return to normalcy.  The truth is, poverty is a social menace Sri Lanka has been trying to address for decades, and in the current economic decline, poverty has, unfortunately, exacerbated. The World Bank estimates 500,000 people have fallen below the poverty line since the beginning of the pandemic, and anecdotal data strongly suggests that in the past two years the poor have become poorer with those who were on the brink of poverty pushed into a state of absolute poverty. While the Government does not seem to have a long-term plan to effectively address this situation, it introduced several relief programmes; the biggest one being the relief package announced by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa after the 2022 Budget, which was said to be worth Rs. 229 billion.  However, it is obvious, and economists have suggested that Sri Lanka’s economic situation is not something relief packages can resolve, and a question arises as to how prudent it is to make the people dependent on relief packages. The most unfortunate reality about relief packages is that Sri Lanka has forgotten that they are essentially temporary, short-term, and interim measures that are meant to be in place until permanent, concrete, and long-term solutions are found for the economic issues the country is facing. However, in Sri Lanka’s case, relief packages have become a normal part of the domestic economy, which literally every government promises to provide and continue when they want to come to power, and therefore, relief packages are often viewed as solutions. The Samurdhi programme, for example, has continued for nearly three decades and for several generations, and for those in need of such reliefs, it has become more of a permanent assistance on which they heavily rely. The ultimate result is, those segments of the society become heavily dependent on such assistance, instead of gradually becoming independent with the help of such assistance. Because such measures help cover up a government’s failures in alleviating poverty and buys time to take long-term decisions that would address poverty in a more solid way, there is also a significant political angle to this relief. On the one hand, addressing poverty is one of the most attractive election promises that resonate with a significant segment of the population, while on the other hand, as long as the people remain in poverty, they tend to be easily distracted from thinking about larger issues such as democracy, human rights, and overall economic growth. We cannot also forget the fact that the above-mentioned relief package comes in a context where long overdue local and provincial government elections are yet to be held, and the need for more votes is intensifying. Needless to say, increasing Samurdhi benefits targets mostly those living in rural areas and economically disadvantaged communities in urban areas, who play an important role in elections.  There is no debate about the fact that relief packages are important to an economy, especially to the economy of those who are facing challenges due to inflation. In a context where there will always be people who are in need of such financial support, relief packages such as Samurdhi are immensely crucial. However, it is also a fact that the more such relief packages are continued without addressing larger economic challenges, the more the people become dependent. While condemning the attempts by not only this Government, but also by almost every former Government, to use poverty as a tool to take advantage of the people to garner votes, we must also as a nation acknowledge the bitter truth that having to introduce, continue, and expand relief measures such as Samurdhi shows not improvement, but failure, on the part of governments.  It is time for politicians to stop using the people’s plight to make them dependent on governments and to thereby take advantage. Relief packages should be seen for what they are – i.e. temporary measures. While the people’s dependency on such temporary measures is a strong factor that helps governments to continue to exploit the people’s issues, power-hungry governments are unlikely to allow the people to see this truth. In this context, social activists also need to take the initiative to make it a part of their efforts to explain this situation to the people, and help the people see that their economic issues require answers beyond mere temporary relief measures.


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