Thoughts from London

These days of promises and platitudes
Words are like leaves, wrote satirist Alexander Pope, where they most abound/ Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. Media Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar had plenty of words to offer the business community and representatives of international lending institutions when he addressed them last week.

Despite Pope's warning against a cascade of words, Kadirgamar's pledges on economic policy made on behalf of the new SLFP - JVP alliance made sense at one level.

The Alliance, he said, "stands for an open and mixed economy. National and international investment will certainly be welcomed, nay wooed. We will encourage tourism. We stand for a strong, accountable and clean public sector and an honest and accountable private sector……..We will sponsor and promote the private sector in every possible way because it is important to achieve rapid economic growth for our country. Growth is not possible without private sector participation to the fullest extent. That is the policy of the Alliance, that is the policy we have agreed to implement."

One is reminded of the ranks of Tuscany and all that, reading what was an assiduous effort by Minister Kadirgamar to assuage the fears and suspicions of a corporate sector that is not only acutely aware of the JVP's past but had also tried hard to break the impasse between the two mainstream parties that had virtually brought governance to a standstill.

The fact that Kadirgamar chose to address the business sector and the international lenders first, shows the importance Alliance leaders place on trying to explain economic policy before the panic starts and business confidence takes a plunge.

Perhaps Chandrika Kumaratunga remembers that her silence on economic policy in the first days of her election victory in 1994 caused tremors among international investors.I was in Hong Kong at the time and had to field many telephone calls inquiring about the political situation and the investment climate in Sri Lanka under a new government that investors knew little about and one that did not take early steps to make a clear policy statement.

One can understand why Kadirgamar was selected for the job. It is not merely because he is articulate and could help smoothen ruffled feelings. He is also the most acceptable face of the Alliance as far as the international and local business community are concerned.

All that is fine. But Kadirgamar's reference to the "presence of the press corps" seemed an unnecessary aside. The media was there for the specific purpose of carrying Kadirgamar's message here and abroad and soften the negative impact in corporate and lending circles about the presence of the JVP. It was not some great concession to the media.

Whether this attempt to show the outside world there is no sharp U-turn in economic policy will succeed or not only time will tell. The immediate question, however, is this. Have we not heard all this before?

Listen to his words again. "What we do not stand for and what we will not tolerate is corruption, unfairness and manipulation. These evils have become the curse of our economy; they have earned us a bad reputation internationally….We do not stand for waste, plunder and inefficiency."

Time and time again politicians have promised the people to wipe out corruption, to eliminate waste and stop plunder. Ranil Wickremesinghe's UNF promised to do so at the last general elections. Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance promised to do so before that. The further one goes back in history, one would find the same glorious promises surfacing.

Lakshman Kadirgamar must be living in cuckoo land if he expects anybody to believe these solemn promises of eliminating corruption and waste. Says Kadirgamar: "Help us to root out corruption. If as a party we fail to do so collectively then hound us out of office at the earliest opportunity."

What grandiose words. Coming from an a Alliance led by a president who has still not made an appointment to the Bribery Commission, Kadirgamar's words are indeed rich.

Is this the action of a president and an Alliance that could be trusted to fulfil the brave words of its media minister who is speaking on behalf of that new grouping? Are these not pious platitudes aired before a genteel audience who cannot be entirely unaware of the use of corporate power to swing deals and suppress others.

Is it not people from the same Alliance that rushed the other day to the Bribery Commissioner to lay allegations against various ministers merely to get political mileage and not with the expectation of action from a dormant commission.

If the President who leads the Alliance that now promises the sun, the moon and the stars, was so desirous of wiping out corruption as Minister Kadirgamar wants us to believe, then should she not have ensured early enough that the Bribery Commission is a functioning institution and not an apology for it.

Mr. Kadirgamar of all people should know not to place too much faith in the promises and commitments of politicians and others, both local and foreign.

It was just a few months back that he burnt his fingers because he expected others to be as honest and truthful as he. Even if the JVP really believes in what is stated in their pact with the SLFP and has indeed undergone a sea of change in thinking, how can Minister Kadirgamar assure the people and the international business and financial community that the seemingly tempered comrades will not have another change of heart, if indeed they have actually done so now? After all how many governments have kept their promises to the electorate. Minister Kadirgamar might honestly believe that these promises will be kept. But there are too many loose words in the policies that would surely raise many an eyebrow.

What, for instance, is "an open mixed economy?" Pray who is going to decide on the mix and who is going to do the mixing? How can Minister Kadirgamar be certain that it will not be a mixed-up economy taking the country back several decades. A sagacious Kadirgamar will not take things at face value. Some faces, as he probably learnt from recent experience, have little or no value.

Not all the perfumes of Arabia will help make these policies smell good, if the vital question of the devolution of power to the Tamil minority is not settled. Right now the two major parties in the Alliance have different views on the issue. If the resumption of war is seen as a possibility, then Mr. Kadirgamar and the Alliance can bye-bye to investment. Won't that make the two Wansas in the JVP happy.

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