Down the pallang

Sri Lanka is now in the grip of what is probably the worst economic crisis it has known in its post-Independence history. Inflation is at a historic high. The rupee is at a historic low. People are queuing for cooking gas and milk food. The cost of living has gone through the roof and opposition politicians are talking about the price of a single carrot or bean pod. What the ill-thought, almost overnight ban on the import of chemical fertilizers has done to the rural farming community, that massively supported the election of the present regime, is visible in protests countrywide. The government paid off a dollar bond of USD 500 million last week as promised. While there has been no debt default up to now, with Sri Lanka retaining its impeccable repayment record, the bonds were settled in the teeth of opposition by several reputed economists. They urged that it is better to fund vital imports, desperately needed by ordinary people here, than foreign bond holders. Governor Cabraal took another view.

The story goes on. Intermittent power shedding in various parts of the country is a daily occurrence. This has been forced on the CEB by its lack of dollars to pay the CPC to which it is indebted to the tune of billions, to supply its needs. Our only oil refinery at Sapugaskanda is closed as there are no dollars to pay for crude oil to sustain it. The ministers of power and energy, holding two different portfolios when commonsense dictates that the subjects go together, are at each other’s throats. Minister Gammanpila’s argument that it is better to suffer sporadic power cuts rather than face a total blackout down the road is not without merit. He has also to balance the needs of both the transport and power sectors in doling out the little stocks he controls. Judging by his recent statements, he seems to believe that transport deserves priority.

Where do we go from here? Down the pallang, most people fear. It is true that the country has proved resilient facing daunting challenges in the past. Today there are gas queues and milk powder queues highlighted in the evening television news bulletins most days. Older readers would remember many more queues under the dispensation of the Sirima Bandaranaike-led United Front government of which both the LSSP and the Communist Party were constituents. Then there were bread queues, flour queues, sugar queues, rice barriers (best known as haal pollas) and what have you. The 1978 (not 1977 as commonly mis-stated) economic liberalization put an end to the scarcities the people had long suffered. But at a price. A heavy price, some would add.

The Island, our stablemate, in a thought provoking article titled “THE DOLLAR CRISIS: What aggravated it,” provides some pertinent answers to what many consider the root of our problems today. The engineer-writer reminds us that the Gal Oya Scheme, the biggest post-Independence development project undertaken by the government of then Ceylon, was funded by our own resources. Then in the 1950s, this country (still Ceylon) undertook the major Colombo Harbour Development Scheme. Engineer D. Godage, the writer of the article under reference, says that made the Port of Colombo one of most modern (probably regional) ports of the time. The late Mr. Tissa Chandrasoma, a reputed civil servant of the day who headed the Port Commission and held several other port related jobs , says there were plans to develop Trincomalee port too at the time. Given the strategic location of what remains one of the world’s finest natural harbours, and the proximate British built tank farm providing massive storage capacity, forging ahead with such a project may have propelled Sri Lanka to where Singapore presently is as the regional shipping hub.

We were fortunate that the global scene as it was in the seventies enabled the 1977 government of President J.R. Jayewardene to compress the massive Mahaweli Development irrigation and hydro-electricity project from the planned 30 years to about six years. This was possible due to the then availability of concessional international credit and grant assistance. The resultant benefits are well known. And they did not lead us to the debt crisis, or debt trap as some would have it, of today. The borrowing sprees that followed to fund what have been described as mere vanity projects to satisfy the egos of elected political leaders, are a different kettle of fish. Several of these are named after the then president and are located in his home turf of Hambantota.

While it is true that the major highways paid for with borrowed funds and built at massive cost has improved connectivity in this island of ours, whether they are earning their keep and paying their way is an open question. So also the Norochcholai coal power plant with a record of frequent breakdowns and environmental cost. There is no question that with the rising demand for power of more recent years have been met thanks to Norochcholai. According to a 2016 report of the External Resources Department cited by the author of the ‘dollar crisis’ article, 28 projects costing approx. USD 7.8 billion were funded by China’s Exim Bank at interest rates speculated to be around six percent. All these are “said to have been” initiated by unsolicited tender, he says. He also quotes a newspaper headline, “Normal tender procedures are not possible for mega projects: PBJ.” The then Treasury Secretary and later Secretary to the President has now left office.

China will be gifting us with a million tons of rice in March to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Rubber-Rice Pact, the newspapers blared last week. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” is a threadbare, albeit proven, cliché. Or is there a free lunch somewhere out there?