Features
Upwardly Mobile Incompetents
By Michael Patrick O’Leary SSAC
In 1982, I moved from Manchester to London to take up a job as assistant secretary to the SSAC (Social Security Advisory Committee) which was then chaired by Sir Arthur Armitage, who was vice-chancellor of my alma mater, Manchester University. Sir Arthur introduced me to Lady Armitage thus, “Michael has the great good fortune to be a Manchester graduate.”
Sir Arthur was a gruff old Tory with alarming eyebrows. The Masonic Temple on Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, was within easy walking distance of our offices. I once went into Sir Arthur’s office when I thought he was not there to find him changing into his Masonic gear ready for a meeting. I was unlikely to warm to a Tory Mason. I had taken part in student protests against Sir Arthur at Manchester University. Nevertheless, I became very fond of him and was sad when he died. He seemed to be bumbling and disorganized when chairing meetings but I found that the minutes wrote themselves because he had deftly shaped the discussion. His successor failed miserably to manage the committee.
SSAC meetings were attended by very senior civil servants. I was amused to note that these mandarins were avid followers of the BBC TV comedy Yes Minister. I recall standing at a urinal with the permanent secretary, Sir Geoffrey Otton, on my left and his undersecretary on my right. They were calling each other “Sir Humphrey”.
Ministers were often invited to SSAC “working lunches”. Wine was available but I stuck to orange juice and ate very little for fear that I might fall asleep in the afternoon. Some SSAC members were not so cautious. I recall one left wing member (Neil Kinnock’s GP) snoring loudly after lunch. He often spent the morning sessions reading Private Eye or the New Statesman and intervening with remarks that had nothing to do with the discussion everybody else was having. He was quite rude to other members but always friendly with me.
The Secretary of State for health and social security at that time was Norman Fowler (now Baron Fowler). He never accepted an invitation from the Committee. Another minister, Tony Newton (now Lord Newton) did attend and he was charm itself. He went out of his way to thank me. Rhodes Boyson also attended and he was a surprise. I had seen him debating in the House of Commons on the same day that I witnessed Gordon Brown’s maiden speech in 1983. I took the easy lefty’s view of Boyson as a reactionary cretin. He had a very successful career in teaching and had adopted a Dickensian persona which made it easy to compare him with Wackford Squeers, the brutal headmaster of Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby. When he came to lunch he was very affable. I was doing my best to keep in the background while he was introduced to Sir Arthur. Boyson ignored Sir Arthur and made a beeline for me.
“Never mind about him. Who’s this fellow here?” he boomed in his Rochdale accent as he grasped me firmly by the hand. He had joined forces with academics AE Dyson and CB Cox, editors of the Critical Quarterly (to which I subscribed when a sixth former) to publish the Black Papers, which argued a hard line on education. I was rather hurt when Cox called me an idle bastard because he was less than impressed with an essay I had written on TS Eliot while at Manchester University. Boyson was described in a Guardian obituary as “more intelligent than he was shrewd.”
One of the SSAC members I got on well with was Henry Hodge, who was well known in left circles as a human rights lawyer. He later became a judge, which was unusual for someone who was a solicitor not a barrister. His wife was Margaret Hodge, who was then leader of Islington council, which was characterized by the right-wing press as “Loony Left”. SSAC held a meeting every year in Belfast and I went there twice. We had dinner at a hotel out in the countryside and Chris Patten, who was then a junior minister at the Northern Ireland department, was invited. Henry introduced me to his old friend from their Balliol, Oxford days. I noticed when I went to the toilet that a large man was in an ante room cleaning a gun. This was Patten’s bodyguard. Patten said that he had that very day upset the Reverend Ian Paisley by saying “Derry” instead of “Londonderry”. Derry is what Catholics call the city. Patten is a Catholic.
Another SSAC member I got on well with was the Reverend Harold Good. I have communicated with Harold in recent years. He is mentioned in two books about the Northern Ireland peace process as being a crucial actor in the talks on decommissioning of IRA arms. Although he is a protestant, Harold said he was proud to call Martin McGuinness his friend.
We had meetings at Stormont and during a break I went to the gents. I hope that I do not give the impression that I am constantly hanging around toilets. While I was relieving myself, a cheery voice called out, “good morning to you.” I responded and noted that my greeter was none other than the Reverend Martin Smyth, Grand Master of the Orange Lodge. Nearly a decade later, I enjoyed a concert of Portuguese Polyphony at St John’s, Smith Square. As I was walking from the venue, along the Thames beside Parliament, a cheery voice called out, “good evening to you.” It was the Reverend Martin Smyth. Was the man stalking me?
Tories Used to Be Human
In subsequent jobs, I had many encounters with ministers. These were Conservatives under the premierships of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. When I was working on fraud prevention, Sir Nicholas Lyell, the attorney general, praised my work. What was notable at that time was that Conservative ministers took a firmly liberal line on human rights issues. There was considerable public pressure to introduce identity cards to combat benefit fraud. Lyell and other ministers consistently resisted such calls.
When I was a ministerial adviser on child protection I provided briefing and wrote speeches for John Bowis. He was also open to liberal views. He insisted on me accompanying him when he met a Conservative MP who was arguing a case for an aggrieved constituent. The MP walked off with my umbrella. Sometime later, I was watching the news while staying with friends in the Cotswolds. The main headline was that Alan Howarth (now Lord Howarth of Newport) had left the Conservative Party and joined the Labour Party. “That’s the man who stole my umbrella!” I ejaculated.
I wrote a speech for Bowis to give to a charity called Parentline and I was in the audience when he delivered it. It was gratifying to hear people laughing at my jokes. One of the celebrity patrons of Parentline was Jane Asher, an actress who was once famous for being Paul McCartney’s girlfriend. She later married the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and achieved fame for making cakes on TV. She donated a cake to Parentline and then sent them an invoice.
Bowis lost his Westminster seat in the 1997 Blair landslide and later served as a member of the EU parliament. My friend worked as his diary secretary in Whitehall and said he was a decent man who was a pleasure to work for (unlike Dominic Raab). There was no indication that Bowis was gay and I don’t think he was – he was married with three children- but he was well-respected by the LGBT community for his support. He served as president of Gay Conservatives, an LGBT group within the Conservative Party.
I one wrote a speech for John Major. Right at the end of my working life, I wrote a speech for Baroness Julia Cumberlege, responding to criticism by Esther Rantzen. Late one evening, I had to sit in “The Box” in the House of Lords while she delivered my speech. My job in The Box was to hand her scribbled notes to help her respond to questions from the Noble Lords. Two interventions I recall were from Gerry Fitt who had been a leading politician in Northern Ireland and Len Murray who had been general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.
Julia (I was also on first name terms with two other Lordships – Herbert Laming and Liam Donaldson) was pleased with the way the event had gone and rewarded me with a huge gin and tonic in the Lords bar. I clinked glasses with Robin Eames, The High Primate of All Ireland (a bishop not a monkey).
I had an interesting conversation with an official from the Home Office about her boss, Michael Howard, who had been criticized by one of his junior ministers, who had said that there was “something of the night” about the then Home Secretary. Howard was somewhat oleaginous but he compares well with successors such as Theresa May, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman. He also had the courage and integrity to sack Boris Johnson for lying to him.
Purging of the Talents
It is a different Tory party today, much further to the right. Human rights are under threat. Boris Johnson in his determination to “get Brexit done” at whatever cost purged the Conservative Party of all its decent and competent people. He removed the whip from 21 MPs. Removing the whip used to be rare – between 1979 and 2019 only 20 Tory MPs ever had the whip removed. The party lost a lot of talent – Philip Hammond, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Kenneth Clarke, Nicholas Soames (Winston Churchill’s grandson), Alistair Burt (met him), Justine Greening, Amber Rudd, David Gauke, Rory Stewart, Caroline Nokes, Ed Vaizey.
Rogues’ Gallery
Today the parliamentary Conservative Party is a nest of unprincipled chancers, spivs and sexual predators. Boris Johnson was chancer in chief and is reportedly trying to take over his fan Nadine Dorries’s safe constituency in order to make a comeback. The list of rogues seems endless. David Warburton was accused by two women of sexual harassment and cocaine use; Charlie Elphicke was jailed for two years after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault – his wife took over his seat; Matt Hancock was caught on camera embracing a woman not his wife. More seriously, as health secretary he handed out Covid contracts to his cronies and billions of taxpayers’ money was lost to fraud and waste; Chris Pincher drunkenly groped two men; Julian Knight, had the whip removed after a complaint to the Metropolitan Police. He claims that he has received blackmail threats; a still unnamed Tory MP was charged with rape; Neil Parish was caught watching porn in the House of Commons; Rob Roberts was accused of making unwanted advances to a man; Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for 18 months for groping a 15-year-old boy; Conor Burns was cleared of allegations that he had put his hand on a man’s thigh. He claimed that the allegations were part of a politically motivated “stitch-up”.
Failing Upwards
In a recent exchange at prime minister’s questions Keir Starmer showed how failures in the probation service led to the rape and murder of Zara Aleena. The man mainly responsible for that was Christopher “Failing” Grayling. The political commentator, Ian Dunt, wrote : “Grayling is at the top of that system of failure. He is that little bit more intellectually, presentationally and ideologically useless than all the others and therefore deserves special mention. But he is merely the totem of a culture that has singularly failed the country.”
Patrick Cockburn in the i-paper describes Liz Truss’s attempted comeback as “frightening indication of how far political promotion has been detached from actual performance.” He describes her tunnel vision as being “not so different from straight stupidity… it can also attract those who mistake inflexibility for determination in pursuit of a well thought-out plan.” Britain is a country in decline and people are wishing for a “golden bullet” to reverse that decline. Some thought Brexit was the magic cure but, as well as ruining the economy, it blighted the political class by elevating “a leadership cadre poorer in quality than any other in British history. Saner and abler politicians and civil servants were systematically sieved out.”
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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