Minister Champika Ranawaka blasts Sri Lanka’s Lamborghini economy
Sri Lanka currently implements an economic system showing Lamborghinis to people surrounded by poverty, said the Minister of Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Patali Champika Ranawaka at the Sri Lanka Science Foundation in Colombo this week.
The country cannot escape from the middle income status trap by promoting the service economy based on entertainment, he told a gathering of scholars, scientists and business leaders.
In a hard hitting speech against the government’s economic policy , he noted that the gap between the rich and poor is widening and people are living in a country where they have to watch Lamborghinis while travelling in jam-packed Tata private buses.
The government should clearly identify its priorities to gain economic prosperity he said adding that “our priority should be on things like modernisation of the country’s only oil refinery at Sapugaskanda, which was not repaired for 40 years, and not express highways”.
The economic standard of the people has not been improved despite the statistics ‘Jil mart’ and this situation was similar to former President J.R. Jayawardane’s regime which continued its rule in the early stages showing such economic data gimmicks. Mr. Ranawaka disclosed.
JR’s rule came to an end after a youth uprising which took the lives of 66,000 youths in the country, he revealed.
He said that today’s economic growth which was blown out of proportion is like a ‘soap bubble with rainbow colours, which a mosquito can burst without a fuss.