For decades, the need for national policies in health, education, social welfare and other allied sector has seen vigorous debate but without any conclusion. The main roadblock: Policies on these crucial areas are designed for political expediency and as vote-catching measures rather than the country’s interests at heart. This applies to all administrations – whether it [...]

The Sunday Times Sri Lanka

National policies or half-baked policies – Comment

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For decades, the need for national policies in health, education, social welfare and other allied sector has seen vigorous debate but without any conclusion. The main roadblock: Policies on these crucial areas are designed for political expediency and as vote-catching measures rather than the country’s interests at heart.

This applies to all administrations – whether it was during the times of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, J.R. Jayewardena, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mahinda Rajapaksa or now with the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe duo in the hot seat.

All these leaders at some point have failed the nation in ensuring policies that stand the test of time irrespective of changing administrations. Changing policies on education (including higher education), health and social welfare (Samurdhi) have resulted in chaos, confusion and uncertainty. Nobody cares anymore.

Take – as one example – the current policies by the transitional government with hand-outs in the national budget, following in the footsteps of the Rajapaksa administration. Former President Rajapaksa offered 12 per cent interest on a million-rupee deposit for elder citizens (60 years and over), and that was followed by a (virtual tit-for-tat) ‘better’ offer of 15 per cent interest to elder citizens. While both offers benefit a section of the population who has been struggling with rising cost of living, the point is that do such short-term policies (this scheme is only valid for a year) serve its purpose and fit into a long-term strategy for the economy?

In a May 24 article in the Business Times headlined “Flawed fuel pricing formulae unlikely to succeed”, guest columnist Upul Arunajith flags some of these issues. He says that solutions must have a definable relationship to the problems ‘we’ strive to resolve. If the potential solution leads to a bigger problem mid-stream then what good would be the solution?

“In the past solutions were developed in a vacuum. Solutions were diametrically opposite to the problem. A case in point is, as a measure of reducing poverty in Sri Lanka consecutive governments since the middle-East boom advocated our village girls and mothers to seek “nanny-opportunity” in these countries. Nannies were a many but so was the direct and indirect social problems. Crux of the problem remains to be that as a nation we lack policies. Policies are formulated by politically appointed individuals who got no comprehension of the problem and fail to see the whole problem. Solutions are offered to fragmented pieces of the bigger problem,” he wrote.

This is exactly the point and one needs to not look far in finding examples as to where Sri Lanka has stumbled or failed. In neighbouring Maldives, tourism is the backbone, the mainstay of the economy. Over 90 per cent of the people are involved in one way or other in this sector. So does the Maldives have a national policy on tourism? In a way yes! Tourism master plans may vary but the basic fundamentals remain. For example, a policy that has stood for 40 years, since the time tourism began there with the creation of two resorts – Kurumba and Bandos -, is that the tallest building/structure on a resort island should not be higher than the tallest coconut tree.

Be it in education, health, social welfare, the policies keep changing all the time and are geared to meet short-term needs with no long term goal in sight. Health is in a mess even after private hospitals came into the picture (patients are still virtually waiting in queues to see consultants which is unchanged from the days of the exclusive state services), private care is exorbitant and unbearable; education is at crisis point with middle-class parents compelled to send their children abroad or seek foreign degrees locally. These graduates, due to their superior knowledge of English and employable as they understand the corporate culture, are often preferred to against state graduates in private sector jobs. The time and place when all or most of the jobs came from the public sector is long gone (decades ago) with the private sector being the engine of growth. But the archaic higher education structure is still heavily weighted in favour of more public sector jobs.
Social welfare has its share of problems with politically-targetted recipients in addition to sections of the non-poor receiving benefits due to corruption. New sectors that have come in like migrant workers (largest foreign revenue earner), tourism and agriculture (future of paddy/tea, etc) also don’t have long term goals or no proper study as to where these sectors should be positioned in the near future – say in 20—30 years. For example, will Sri Lanka still be exporting labour (domestic, unskilled workers) in the year 2030 or 2050? If not, is there a policy as to what happens to the many expectant women in the village who see this as their El Dorado (riches) to escape from poverty and boost the family income?

Tourism: Are there long-term plans to mitigate the impact on the environment, over visitation if tourist arrivals reach the dizzy levels like the Maldives, Singapore or Dubai where foreign visitors outnumber local populations?

Tea: Is there a long-term plan to sustain this rapidly, loss-making asset which is part of Sri Lanka’s culture, heritage and stands in the way (in a positive sense) of other development where acres of agriculture land (coconut estates for example) are stripped to make way for artificial development projects? Will it be more machine-controlled and less manual? If so what happens to the workers?

Garments: What is the garment factory of the future? Will it be more technology-driven with less labour? If so where will this potential workforce fit in to other sectors of the economy?

These are not new issues. And politicians of all sides are aware, much aware of the need for national policies with long-term goals. The public service, strong and capable of standing up to politicians many decades ago, is now servile, not entirely their fault. Any honest and upright officer is faced with transfer, threatened or even dismissed on some frivolous grounds. That’s the way it is; that’s the system.

National policies are good for the people, for the country and must – without a doubt – be the way forward. Politicians who support the concept of national policies should lead the way, seek consensus in society. But if one is to be a realist, waiting for the emergence of leaders who would drive national policies with the people’s interests at heart, leaders who display statesmanship, is like “waiting for Godot”.

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