Financial Times

Frustrating year for the UPFA?
It's a year since the UPFA government came into power. So how does one gauge its performance? The Sunday Times FT last week ventured out to seek the views of the business community and allied fields and our poll shows that the majority is dissatisfied by the government's performance.

The poll doesn't however reflect the views of a large segment of the people - the rural masses - since we confined to business and industry with a few exceptions. The verdict might have been different in a countrywide, all segments poll. Nevertheless our survey was meant to assess the views of a particular category and apart from the negatives on the performance level, there were also accolades for the government in the field of corruption and improved law and order.

The JVP, much hated by sections of the business community for their unfriendly attitude towards business, was marked for praise by some in keeping the coalition in check in terms of corruption and governance. While the views of the public at large may not be as negative as what is seen from a business perspective, one must also take into account that the UPFA government has had to tackle internal strife; a delayed start to the appointment of a cabinet and the tsunami crisis during its tenure of office which marked one year on April 2 - all of which would have diverted attention from the real issues.

The government has been stumbling on issues like the peace process, dollar parity rate - which has improved somewhat due to tsunami inflows or sentiment after that, rising cost of living and privatisation. They have got into a major tangle over privatisation and is now trying to pacify the JVP that plans for reforms at the CEB and CPC is not privatisation but a restructuring process to make it efficient.

The poll also came up with a clear verdict on the choice of ruling parties - the UNP is no different from the UPFA - and that all rulers are the same and don't have the people's interests at heart. In fact one of the messages in a recent presentation by management guru Omar Khan is that the private sector should ignore the political turmoil and work independent of who is running the country! Ignore the politicians -- sound advice indeed as it has been proved over and over again that most politicians are busy lining their pockets during their tenure in office and not concerned about the masses.

Transparency is also a problem. For example, our attempts to seek clarification from PERC on recent ads offering state lands for sale was an utterly frustrating exercise. Several calls and after being sent from officer to officer, we are told only the PERC chairman is authorised to speak to media. Fine - and we have no grouse with that - but is he available? Thus we have to run a story this week over a debate over whether PERC has the right to sell bare land - without comments from PERC.

Apart from these developments, there was good news too with Ceylon Biscuits succeeding in an Indian court to finally take charge of the Bakeman operation, a new Code for Tax officers and plans by the Tax Commissioner-General to set up a one-stop-shop for tax inquiries manned by people-friendly staff. The bottomline however in coming weeks is whether the Finance Minister would be able to convince the JVP that the CEB and CPC reforms are crucial for the country.

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