Features
Hindu Ladies College and Peninsula idyll
Excerpted from Chosen Ground: The Clara Motwani saga
by Goolbai Gunasekera
Mrs. Visaladhy Sivagurunathan, a philanthropic Hindu lady, had gifted the property of Hindu Ladies’ College to the school in 1943. Mother was the school’s fifth Principal. Under her, the first Past Pupils’ Association was formed, with Mrs. Jeevaratnam Rasiah as its first President. Miss Thambu (Mother’s long suffering Tamil tutor) was its Secretary. Just recently, I was invited to speak to the Colombo branch of the HLC alumni.
I met a former HLC teacher there – Mrs Navaratna, formerly Leela Ponniah – along with many old friends. The reverence in which Mother was held was very heart- warming, and it was a moving experience to hear the stories they related of instances in which Mother had touched – and sometimes directed – their lives.
A glamour figure on the HLC campus was a Miss Shantha from India. She wore the most gorgeous saris and influenced my love of cotton saris in years to come. It is strange indeed that one’s perceptions can be so acutely honed when one is still so young. To this day I can recall most of Miss Shantha’s wardrobe.
Another fantastically good teacher was Vijayalakshmi Pathy. She was also one of the most attractive. She absorbed all Mother’s teaching methods; and her family in Britain, where she now lives, is a testimony to her fine guidance as a mother and grandmother, and not only as a teacher.
Picnics in Jaffna were given top priority. Mother liked to combine education with pleasure, so every picnic had some place of interest on the day’s agenda. We visited the Rosarian monks’ vineyards and place of retreat. We went to Keerimalai, which is a fresh water tank lying a few yards away from the sea. Bathing suits were not a part of our school wardrobes, but even in sarongs and bathing cloths we essayed a swimming stroke or two.
Visits to other schools were another distraction. Mother arranged netball matches with many Jaffna schools and colleges, and I particularly remember one with Vembadi Girls’ School, for I made a friend, Kiruba Moses, whom I remember to this day.
Mother was quickly drawn into the educational world of Jaffna. Miss Barker of Vembadi was a dose friend and Principals’ meetings were many. Being somewhat young at the time, many illustrious names have now escaped me. I do recall having tea with Lady Ramanathan, the British wife of the founder of Ramanathan College. Her daughter, Mrs. Nadesan, was the nominal Head of that school but it was the senior Lady Ramanathan who pretty much ran things. Transport was occasionally in cars – often in buggy carts.
Athough Mother did not keep diaries that recorded her personal experiences, she was a great one to keep detailed notes of the educational aspects of her life. That she would keep notes on my progress was to be expected, but they were not the sort of notes one expects of a mother: they were the notes of an educationist. In years to come I was not enchanted to read: ‘Goolbai would do better in Mathematics if she were not so over confident. This carries over into other subjects too, I find’.
Whatever Mother thought of my shortcomings as a student, she positively glowed at my accomplishments in Jaffna. Her notes took on a lyrical quality. She rhapsodized: ‘My experiments seemed to have worked at last, and Goolbai is really doing so well I can hardly credit it’. Never could it be said that dilly-dallying was one of Mother’s failings. Taking the tide at its flood she arranged for all the new academic interest I was showing to be further enhanced by a little advanced private tuition in Science.
My classmate Thilaka Karunanandan had a brother who had just finished his degree and was reputedly a brilliant scholar. Mother asked him if he would kindly tutor me in his spare time. He did.
When I was not studying on my own I was being tutored regularly. Along with my classmates, I played netball, studied, sang Tamil songs (which I quickly picked up) in the evenings, studied, had long icily refreshing well baths, studied, saw a movie once a month, studied and then studied some more.
My mind was soon becoming as razor-sharp as those of the brilliant Tamil girls with whom I was now competing although, truth to tell, I was never in their league. The students of HLC had the tenacity of Bruce’s spider. They were always on an upward track.
“But what did you do in Jaffna?” Colombo friends would ask Mother later.
“We were always doing something,” Mother would answer, and we were.
Socially, a lot went on behind those cadjan walls that screened the houses and gardens of Jaffna residences from the road. Right opposite our home and almost next to the school lived Dr. and Mrs. Canagasabai and their family. Dr. Canagasabai – a Malaya returned doctor, whose youngest daughter Dharma, had just left school –quickly struck up a friendship with us.
Dr. Canagasabai had a very large garden with a badminton court and every evening we would play strenuous matches with the Canagasabai nieces, nephews and friends. It was a sort of informal club. On moonlit nights picnics would be arranged to beaches and similar places, with no thought of danger in anyone’s mind. It was a time of peace. It was a time of friendship. These were the last few years before politics and politicians divided the island as surely as if they had taken a metaphorical knife and cut this lovely land and its people in half.
Sincerity, simplicity and affection were
what Mother found in Jaffna. She had expected immovable bastions of conservatism. She found instead pliable minds and flexible brains. Jaffna has always remained a special place to the Motwanis. Before the 1983 tragedy stopped travel to the North, I took my husband and daughter to revisit my old school. It was a nostalgic time.
The school was on vacation but I had the permission of the Principal to wander through it. Buildings had quadrupled in size but the familiar classrooms still stood. I recalled with a shudder the time I opened my desk and found that a little snake had got in through the inkwell. Could this have been the very desk perhaps? There was still an inkwell in it.
Mother had begun the study of Tamil a week after she got to Jaffna. Our brand-new house had a broad veranda running right around it. An enormous desk occupied the shady side of it, and it was here that Mother had her lessons. She could never rid herself of that very American trait which had every waking moment gainfully utilized. Despite a heavy work schedule, Mother seriously tried to learn the language.
“Did she ever pick it up?” I asked her teacher, Thailnayagi Thambu (now Karunanandan) recently.
“She was not in Jaffna long enough to really get into it,” was the tactful reply. Mother’s flair for languages did not translate well into the Oriental variety. She was considered the class wizard in Latin, French and Spanish but somehow her ear was not attuned to Sinhala and Tamil. Neither was it vital to learn either language when she first came to this island as the British still ruled and everything was in English. Father, on the other hand, picked up Sinhala in three months and was soon well able to berate our long suffering cook-amme in an understandable lingo.
I drifted into Mother’s old office. It was still the same office but very modernized. It was here Mother had drilled her teachers in the requirements of the Dalton Plan.
This plan was a system she had greatly admired when visiting the Dalton School in New York. It required that teachers made detailed plans of their subject, and students were given these plans in the form of six-weekly advance schedules. A gifted student could then even proceed on her own, while a weak one could get help before the subject was taken up in class. At the Dalton School in New York, which I attended for a short time, I never got beyond History and English — but I did complete those syllabuses to Mother’s satisfaction.
“Your Mother motivated us instantly,” said Miss Leela Navaratne (nee Ponniah). “We understood the Plan, and it was brilliant from the start.” Of course it worked well. The teachers of Jaffna were born with that same workaholic gene that Mother was finding in her pupils.
As I left the familiar grounds I took one long last look around. I somehow knew I would never see HLC again. Visits to Jaffna take a long time, and were not planned too easily even at that time. The memory of the picture my tall, lovely and gracious Mother made as she said her goodbye to the girls and Staff at Assembly that last day, is still fresh in my heart. And in my own heart the remembrance of Jaffna will always be green.
Our lovely days of quietness and harmony in Jaffna had drawn to a close and Mother returned to Colombo to head Musaeus College. One footnote that bears telling is that thanks to Mother’s recommendation, Dharma Canagasabai became an air hostess on the newly fledged Air Ceylon soon after Mother returned to Colombo.
Peninsula idyll
It cannot be said that I am one of those persons who look at the past through a rose-tinted veil. I do not think that my school days were the happiest times of my life. During my childhood, and even during the teen years, life was restrictive. It was often pleasant, but that was more the luck of the draw. Parents did not lay themselves out to entertain their children or keep them happy. They saw to it that we were reasonably well disciplined and well fed. Our ongoing happiness was not their problem. They had no reason to assume we were anything but totally contented. Today’s collective genuflecting at the shrine of teenage whims and fancies was simply not on.
Mother and Father did not expect either Su or me to feel depressed, insecure, uncertain or unsure. What cause did we have, parents would ask each other in honest bewilderment, to be any of the above? They saw to it that we were told all they felt we needed to know. We went straight from girlhood to adulthood with no dithering along the way. One day we looked like nothing on earth in sober uniforms, tightly braided hair and bright shiny faces, and the very next day we were in a sari (of Mother’s choice or else the choice of Mr. Chandiram, proprietor of the ‘in’ sari shop of the time and the arbiter of teen fashions), looking very grown up and quite glamorous. There was no in-between time.
If I was happy anywhere during my school years, it was in Jaffna. Perhaps it -was the laid-back lifestyle of the Peninsula that caused me to have Mother’s company for much of the time. This is what made it so pleasurable. We were always exceptionally close. For years we were pretty much alone together, while Father was traipsing round the world on lecture tours, and Su was in the USA with our grandparents or else at St. Bridget’s Convent which she loved.
As a result, Mother and I bonded more closely than we would have done if we had had a normal family life. It was a closeness that Su always resented. Sometimes Father did so too. I was more attuned than they were to Mother’s moods — such as they were, for she was not a moody person. She had a happy outlook, an optimistic one. Her occasional worries became my worries, and as I grew older, I could always sense if she were ill.
I worried about her health. Mother had rather brittle bones, and a fall could mean a fracture. She had a low tolerance of pain, and I hated to see her suffer. Her joys, likewise, were shared with me. I understood her. We loved being together. Her gentleness, imposed on my more aggressive personality, has benefited me all my life.
Mother feared and disliked cats intensely. This aversion extended to anything furry, even a fur coat.
“Would you rather have a snake curled round you or have a cat on your lap?” we would ask her.
“A snake any day,” she’d reply, shuddering. “I would hyperventilate if a cat sat on my lap.”
This fear caused her much grief When she was a teenager my grandmother had taken her to hear the great pianist Paderewski play. (He was later the Prime Minister of Poland). The lady seated next to Mother had slung her fur coat over the arm of her chair, and poor Mother sat rigidly through what should have been one of the most wonderful experiences of her life.
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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