SJB opposes import restriction on underwear!

The Opposition has a habit of opposing every move of the government, whether it is good or bad. It is protesting against the government to impose a 100% margin deposit requirement on the importation of non-essential goods. Among these non-essential goods list is underwear. Some of the SJB MPs have said that the government has disregarded people’s need to wear underwear. How ridiculous they sounded! Why did they have to mention underwear, one cannot fathom, when several of the items on the list, such as mobile phones, are of an essential nature in the modern world. They probably like to play to the gallery by talking about underwear with catchy Sinhala phrases. By doing that they display their callous naivety and lack of experience, wisdom and judgment on the need for self-reliance in these Covid times.

We have been living beyond our means and that is one reason why we are struggling to survive now. We have been spending borrowed money to import luxury vehicles and goods. We have not paid any attention to the need to be self-sufficient in food and other items that could be produced locally. Instead, we have depended on export of items, like tea and garments, and remittance from our foreign employed labour, to earn foreign exchange to import food and other items that could be produced locally. Sri Lanka’s expenditure on imports is more than double its income from exports. More than half of this is spent on food items that could be produced locally. Further, our exports are subject to the vagaries of market forces and if these are unfavourable, as experienced at present, due to the Covid pandemic, we would struggle for existence and will have to beg for loans from countries, like Bangladesh, which had been economically behind us but now seems to have overtaken us and are on a fast track in development.

Bangladesh had managed its economy very carefully. They have invested adequately for achieving self-sufficiency in food, medicine, and other essential items. They did not spend their hard-earned foreign exchange on luxury vehicles and other goods, including luxury underwear. SJB should be ashamed to talk about underwear as if it was an item of clothing that is difficult to produce without the highest technological know-how. Do people in this country need imported underwear? One third of them exist on one meal a day and probably have no money to spend on underwear. And the SJB says the Government has put paid to the people’s wish to wear imported underwear.

Almost all our neighbouring countries have managed their economy quite well in the past two decades and are well on the way to reach developed status. And the impact of the Covid pandemic, on the economy, is bearable for most of these countries, whereas Sri Lanka would be struggling to survive. Vietnam, for instance, which was down in the doldrums after its scathing war with the US, have surged forward and would be competing with its richer neighbours soon. These countries have developed their economy by focusing on self reliance and food and medicine security as priorities. They have not gone for luxury. The super luxury vehicles, that we see so frequently on our roads, are not to be seen on their roads. Perhaps same could be said about underwear.

Sri Lankans have a penchant for imported stuff. We do not value our ability to produce goods of good quality. This seems to apply to things like underwear also. And a leading political party, like the SJB, endorses this sad state of affairs when it should be welcoming the Government policy to restrict import of non-essential goods. Import restriction, apart from saving foreign exchange, should have the more important goal of moving towards self-sufficiency and growth of local industry. SJB and its predecessor, the UNP, never had a substantial import substitution policy. Self-sufficiency was not in their agenda at any time. The SLFP, under Sirimavo, made a huge effort to control imports and develop local industry though the extreme controls it imposed proved to be counter productive. The UNP followed a policy decided by the IMF and during its reign in the ‘yahapalana’ times managed to bring down the GDP from a healthy 6% in 2014 to less than 2% in 2019. The SJB, though trying to show a different face, cannot escape the imperialist yoke and would try to encourage imports, including underwear.

The present government must teach our people to live within our means. It must make virtue of necessity and show the people the value of local products. Instead of importing duty free super luxury vehicles, for politicians, they must start using locally manufactured vehicles. The ban on import of vehicles must remain and local manufacture of vehicles the country needs must be encouraged. Similarly all food items and medicine we need must be locally produced and the country must achieve self-sufficiency in food, medicine and clothes, not to mention underwear.

N.A. de S. Amaratunga