‘Bit of’ dictatorship and militarisation needed for Sri Lanka’s growth, Weerawansa says
The one time warrior who advocated liberation of the country through revolution, now a Minister of the government, has taken a sharp turn in his ideology and says that to develop a country there should be strong leadership with a flavour of dictatorship with a taint of militarisation.
Wimal Weerawansa, Minister of Construction, Engineering Services, Housing and Common Amenities, while speaking as Chief Guest at the launch of Construction Expo 2015 and the launch of World Construction Symposium and the Green Building Conference in Colombo this week, expressed the above view.
‘Construction Expo 2015′ organised for the 4th consecutive year by the Ceylon Institute of Builders (CIOB) in partnership with the Lanka Exhibition and Conference Services (Pvt) Ltd (SLECS) will be held from 12 to 14 June 2015 at the BMICH.
Mr. Weerawansa who once considered the US as anathema had the audacity to quote American Hope Magazine as saying that Sri Lanka is one among the 10 countries for the tourists to travel to in 2015.
He said that while Sri Lanka during a 30-year period struggled, was engulfed with insurgency and internal conflicts, during the last four years it has been focusing on development and making much progress in that area. He said that while this country was struggling, several other countries which were behind Sri Lanka earlier were forging ahead of Sri Lanka.
A country like Korea, he said that was considered as a country infested with poor shanty dwellers, is far ahead of Sri Lanka and this progress was made due to a strong leadership with military powers. He said that countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines all are ahead of Sri Lanka and all of them had some kind of strong leadership with dictatorial powers.
He cited Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore as strong examples.
The type of strong leadership that was available in those countries that lead them to forge ahead of Sri Lanka, is now available with President Mahinda Rajapakse and in fact he said that anybody can see the difference in development in the country and also the stability.
With the opportunity provided by the peace dividend, Sri Lanka’s focus now is to grow with the competitive international market and move ahead of those countries and reach the level of high standards of those countries. This is the correct track, he said, adding that the old topics of insurgency and internal conflicts are things of the past.
People looking at different angles would have been critical of Mahathir Mohamed, and out of the seven democratic concepts there would have been three or four of them missing. Even in Singapore, he said, seven star democracy was not available and these had to be sacrificed to pave the way for the type of development those countries achieved. Thus these countries would have foregone some of the democratic liberties.
Dr. Rohan Karunaratne, Chairman, CIOB said that the mega scale construction contracts are shared by about 30 to 40 big timers and the small and medium scale constructors which numbered around 2,000 were left out and they even find difficulties to pay up their bank loans. He said that it is the duty of the government to help these small timers – the SMEs to have a share in the construction industry.
He said that 2015 would be a challenging year for the construction industry and noted that the government has signed around Rs. 500 billion worth of contracts. The Northern Express way alone would be Rs. 250 billion, he pointed out. The vast development taking place in Colombo, he said, would change the aerial picture of the country.
He said that along with the problem of SMEs, there are several other challenges as Sri Lanka’s construction cost has spiralled into an all-time high and in countries like Myanmar the cost would be around 30 per cent less. Due to this high construction cost prevailing in Sri Lanka, Dr Karunaratne pointed out foreigners are reluctant to invest in the Sri Lanka’s construction industry.
He said that to overcome the high cost of construction, Sri Lanka builders have no option other than to move into modern technology.
Others who spoke at the launch were Prof Chithra Weddikkara, President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects; Mahanama Jayamanne, Chairman, Construction Expo Organizing Committee and Aasim Mukthar CEO, Lanak Exhibition and Conference Services Pvt Ltd.