In SL even welfare schemes and safety nets go corrupt

I have been watching with rising concern and yes, disgust, the many protests by mostly women that they were excluded from the Aswesuma recipients’ list, having received Samurdhi assistance. Concern is for the fate of the really destitute persons and disgust because very many of the persons who shout the loudest are able bodied and could very well earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. If the able were supporters of the protest and joined forces with their very poor relatives, my disgust need not be.

However many of the protestors were buxom, well-muscled, middle aged dames who claimed their names were eliminated from the Samurdhi list which was the base of the Aswesuma lists. It is only too well known that most of those who received Samurdhi benefits were creepers through the backdoor, pushed in by politicians, officials of the very department; the favour of receiving a monthly ping padiya not being an altruistic act but one of corruption: either to win votes, or receive a bribe which could vary from money to favours given.

History of safety nets

Long ago, in the 60s all got a free rice ration and lower priced basic food requirements. Then came a coupon system for the very poor which enabled them to get their provisions to feed themselves either free or at subsidized rates.

The Janasaviya scheme (Strength of the People), the brain child of top government official Susil Siriwardhana was initiated by President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1989 soon after the presidential election. “The object was to shift the focus of social welfare policy from enhancing consumption and nutrition levels to alleviating poverty through employment creation and social mobilization. The program was designed in line with the new government’s development framework of the poor in the development process.”

To continue the quote I culled from Internet: “In return for the benefits received; one member from each beneficiary family was expected to participate in productive work for 20 days a month or be engaged in training …”

I googled questions on Samurdhi. What is the meaning of Samurdhi?

Answer (summarizing Google statement): “Samurdhi (or prosperity) programme, launched in 1995, had as its main goal the reduction of poverty through development based public participation. Three components of the programme: 1. income transfer, provide consumption support and function as social insurance support to protect the poor during extra severe situations as health and loss of life. 2. Community development by means of investing in economic, social, infrastructure and 3. Micro finance programme through Samurdhi Bank societies.”

On May 9 President Ranil W issued directions for initiation of Aswesuma welfare payments which were scheduled to commence July 1. Payments would be distributed to four categories: transitional, vulnerable, poor, extremely poor. Additionally, the usual allowances would continue to be paid to the differently abled, elderly and kidney patients.

Most of us are very concerned about the poor in our land which have, according to statistics, doubled in the last couple of years, particularly after the Covid upheaval and now with drastic measures having to be taken to restructure the country’s huge debts. I asked around about the protests of Samurdhi recipients from my friends, among them a top ex-civil servant, a historian and a banker.

Opinion was somewhat divided about the protests. Some have extra soft hearts and/or greater sympathy for women. But many felt like me: that the able bodied were receiving Samurdhi benefits and thus this scheme was bleeding the finances of the country. All agreed a thorough investigation of the financial and social state of recipients should be carried out, honestly, and the list drastically pruned. The joke was that collectors of the fund each month, arrived by car!

This also means corruption should be wiped out. It may seem impossible in this country with politicians, originally poor, now multimillionaires; so also government officials – top to bottom. The drug menace is slowly but surely killing Mother Lanka’s youth and her future; so also the addiction of many to dishonesty and underhand money making. We recognize the worst of the latter category but they are out there jaunty and shedding crocodile tears for the poor while indirectly stabbing them all.

Grameen (village) Bank

An associated idea with the term poverty that springs to mind is the Grameen Bank Scheme which helped the poor in Bangladesh to help themselves to mitigate the miseries of being poor.

“The project started in 1976 as an action research pilot project in Jobra village in the Chattogram district of Bangladesh. In 1983, the project was transformed into a bank with the aim of empowering the marginalized poor through micro-credit.” Most unique features were that no collateral is required to get credit from a Grameen Bank, and women encouraged to join the Grameen fraternity. It was found they utilized the money very well starting money earning small enterprises and most importantly, they paid due interest to the bank on time while also earning much of the wherewithal to manage to feed and clothe their families.

That paragraph misses the most important feature of the start of the Grameen Bank and microcredit. Known universally, it was the brain child of Muhammad Yusuf (b1940) – social entrepreneur, banker, economist, civil society leader and recognized worldwide to be all these and more. He basically is a humane person who seeing the poverty in his village distributed $ 27 of his own money among 42 poverty stricken women. Most of their share they spent on starting micro businesses and made profits. Then he developed the idea of village banks to help villagers by lending them money. Micro financing, Yunus has declared, is “An ever more important instrument in the fight against poverty” and “We will make Bangladesh free of poverty by 2030.”

Yunus was Professor of Economics in the Chittagong University after which he was Chancellor of the University of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland from 2012 to 2018. Among several awards, he won the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009; Congressional Gold Medal in 2010, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He used part of the prize money to create a company to make low cost, high nutrition food for the poor. With the rest he set up the Yunus Science and Technology University in his home area in Bangladesh. Fortune magazine has named him one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of this era.

How does the life of this great friend of the poor of Bangladesh end? With politics of the nasty kind intruding. When he turned 71, under orders of the Minister of Finance, the Central Bank of Bangladesh ordered him to ‘Stay away’ from Grameen Banks. He had been a supporter of the present Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina’s father – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – but she has turned against Yusuf and instigated several court cases against him, which of course he contests, mostly over finances of the Grameen Banks.

(An interesting note from Internet is that Hasina with 19 years of being Head of Government, the longest on record, has had “Bangladesh experience democratic backsliding”). The government started an investigation into the bank and in now planning to take over Grameen – a majority of whose shares are owned by its borrowers – and break it up to 19 regional lenders. This turn of events is unthinkable, but it is true. World organizations have risen against what is being done to this great man.

Which brings me back to the subject of this article which is the Sri Lankan government’s methods to eradicate poverty. I do not know whether the Aswesuma scheme has ramifications, but it is approved of by many I spoke with as being a method to shake off parasites from receiving handouts which they do not need. The truly poverty ridden and destitute should be assisted, while those found to be able bodied etc should be helped to earn to sustain themselves.

Like so many other negative traits that we have as citizens of this country, the majority Sinhalese population is lazy and quick to outstretch the begging palm. Governments down the decades have, for politicians’ vote winning mostly, encouraged this by disbursing handouts. The Tamil population of Sri Lanka is hardworking and most often self-sufficient unto themselves. India has risen from its poverty and more so China; not solely through government action and programmes but because Indians and Chinese are hard workers.

The allegorical tale of the poor man given a fishing rod when he complained of hunger (“It is better to teach a man to fish than give him a fish”) and poverty, is a good reminder to those who wail about their children being eternally hungry. That need not be in a fertile country with most people ready to help neighbours.