Politicians: Time to manage your greed
The lingering pieces of a post-colonial socialist economic system that have kept the government deeply involved in various unproductive and underproductive sectors and propping up inefficient state-run enterprises came under fire by business leaders recently. They also criticised the incompetencies in IT skills at many levels in the state mechanism.
“We’re in a situation where many state sector officials still live in the Middle Ages. That has to change,” a participant at a roundtable organised by the global publishing, research and advisory firm Oxford Business Group (OBG) told the Business Times recently.
Ruwindhu Peiris, Managing Director and head of the Colombo office of Stax, a global strategy consulting firm with global offices, and a panelist at this discussion held on Tuesday, noted that Sri Lankans are by nature linear thinkers which is a thinking process that proceeds in a sequential manner, like a straight line. Adaptability to certain situations and new technology and new way of doing things is rare, he said.
A coalition administration elected in 2015 pledged its commitment to inclusive governance and economic reform, a rebalancing of foreign policy, and reconciliation with its ethnic minorities but instead it diverged on several key policy issues, leading to delays in the legislative agenda and culminating in a constitutional crisis last year. Now the country is gearing towards a presidential election.
Dr. Nushad Perera, Group Chief Digital Services Officer Dialog Axiata PLC who was also a panelist said that the water fall starts from the top, so the top needs to understand. They have now outdone their tenure. “We need a new set of people who comprehend the regulatory framework.”
Mr. Peiris pointed out that Rs.200 million worth of publicity is needed to become a Member of Parliament. “I managed to do some research on this (the Rs. 200 million). All I want to tell politicians is, manage your greed. And enjoy while it lasts because it will change.”
“All the nonsense that we are worried about ‘now’ will be irrelevant in two decades. But in the meantime we need to demand a lot more and tolerate a lot less (from politicians).”
Mr. Peiris said that in the next two decades kids will change owing to the digital transformation and politics too, will change. “As a result, those who are in power will not know what we are talking about now. And that is because their relevance is going to expire very fast,” he added.
Dr. Perera said that there are about 18 ministries to manage agriculture in Sri Lanka. “Herein lays the pancreas. It’s all bifurcated. First we must get all the agencies under one umbrella and then digitise. Digitising 18 ministries such as fertilizer, livestock, tea, coconut, paddy, rubber, irrigation etc won’t give any lasting benefits.”
Dr. Perera commended the resilient nature of the Sri Lankan people. “We bounce back. Everytime. We have had two PMs and we bounced back.
We bounced back from 21/4 events. We bounced back well after the Tsunami, we are a resilient population.”