Letters to the Editor
View(s):Doctors of doom and their prophecies of perdition
When truth is on the sacrificial altar of pecuniary gain, our beloved Nation, through its legitimate government, has to fight tooth and nail to stay above this morass of destruction. It is most unfortunate that there seems to be a surfeit of a decade of ill-gotten lucre available to lure one-time sensible people of letters to achieve these despicable ends, much to the annoyance of an amiable Prime Minister labouring hard to tread the honourable path of achieving true prosperity for our motherland.
There were a few lettered high jumpers who sought to lend patronage for propaganda for the new government in early 2015, that true wisdom sensibly refused to accept. This seems to be the real reason for the 180 degree ‘about turn’ hop-step-and-a jump to propagate perdition against an honest attempt at resuscitating the economy.
Divine providence has played a vital part in frustrating the almost perpetual negative vibes that stormed our nation, firstly the 51 day denouncement of democracy, secondly, coming on its heels, the Easter Sunday blast of 268 harmless souls – worshippers and tourists among them. In spite of these cataclysmic phenomena, an honest judiciary of seven fearless judges brought back the democratic rightful Prime Minister and our nation still tops tourism’s prized attractions with the government doing its best to stir the International Community to favour our nation with their continuing generous tourist patronage.
The depraved DNA of the Doctors of Doom is manifest during their repeated nauseous press conferences engaging in nit-picking petty grievances against a government relentlessly toiling to conquer countless daily problems of enormity. They deride the removal of an outrageous 18th Amendment and pick holes in maybe a little rushed 19th that partly limited the dictatorship of the Executive. Hopefully they will come around one day to use their erudition, with wisdom, to ask relevant questions from good governance in adversity, like for example: – Why is there such inordinate delay in legal deliberation for true justice in simple cases of obvious guilt (a) allowing seasoned criminals comfortable hospitals beds to relax in Remand instead of the tight benches of the cell or (b) giving them ultra-long bail holidays with licence to roam abroad, to cover up their sinister banking tracks ?
Acts to admire include the recent revelation by the inspired Governor of the Central Bank that the temporarily ailing tourism sector seeking multiple moratoria on loans totalling over a colossal Rupees One Hundred Billion have already had bank approval for nearly a thousand requests and a further in excess of 2,500 are being generously processed; slow though with many banks reluctant to take risks.
However Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy points out that though tourism was badly impacted, mostly by the Easter Sunday carnage, its recovery is faster than expected. After hitting a three year low this April due to this and the New Year holidays, Industrial Production miraculously recovered to a three year high this May – the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) peaking at 106.1 compared with 103.7 in May 2017 and 105.7 in May 2018 (data released by the Department of Census and Statistics). Ten out of twenty Industry Groups have shown positive growth – Electrical Equipment Manufacture 19.8%, Paper Products 17%, Chemicals 16.9% compared with their performance in May 2018. If this is what the Sri Lanka workforce can achieve in adversity, ‘hope definitely springs eternal’. Since Dr. Howard Nicholas, world renowned Sri Lanka-born economist recommends diversified export-oriented manufacturing, these industry groups should add their export potential to our Garments and Textiles.
Even though our GDP in US $ terms is higher than our neighbours India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Dr. Nicholas urges our export-oriented manufacturing to show some dynamism by welcoming ‘USA and China and sucking in their production capability like Vietnam has done’. However unlike our Doctors of Doom, the renowned economist stresses: “it is an exaggeration to say that Sri Lanka’s economy is in ruins today, but the Country COULD DO BETTER”.
My sincere prayer and hope is that a true spirit of unity, peace and resuscitation of the love of democracy will prevail among the many people of goodwill in our nation often oppressed with travail.
Mano Chanmugam Via email