SRI LANKAN ECONOMIC QUAGMIRE - FILLING APOROUS- BOTTOMED CONTAINER

By Dr. Yasapala Ratnayake, Former Senior Management Consultant, SLIDA.

Magnitude of the Present EconomicCrisis:

\The crisis of the Sri Lankan economy is a manmade phenomenon with its roots penetrating as back as the immediate post independent periodwith the clear visibility ofembryonic signs of theincoming crisisbefore it became a full-blown disaster of today’s magnitude.However,owing to the dereliction of all responsible parties linked with the accountability of governing the country,a crisis that could have been nipped out at the inception was allowed, wittingly or unwittingly, to take its natural course of destruction which resulted in thegrowth of crisis into monster dimensions in a relatively short period of time, finally engulfingthe whole country in an economic whirlwind.

The economy today is in tailspin and woes of Sri Lanka, as indicated by major performance parameters, seem to be in deterioration by the dayengendering hopelessness, despair and anger among the ordinary masses, in particular the meso social stratum,which as a whole bring the country to the brink of collapse whilepolarizing the already divided political apparatchiks and their voter support base to an unprecedentedno holds barredconflict and enmity.

In this context, the current review article examines the complexities involved in the ongoing economic quagmire the country is virtually ensnared with and discusses the futility of the government effort to recuperate the country from the economic disaster without making fundamental economic and policy restructuring for sealing the large scale leakages of the economy which, from the writer’s point of view, can be contrasted with an effort to fill an empty water container that has a porous bottom.

Scarcity of essential commodities, withering of foreign exchange reserves, spiraling inflationover sixty percent, unstable supply of fissile fuel and gas, escalation of passenger transport cost, skyrocketing electricity and water tariff are the saliant features of the day-to-day life of the masses since the beginning of 2022 which do not show any sign of receding in the near future as the country is drifting like a ship with a defunct engine in the stormy see.According to the authoritative sources of both government and international monetary organizations, an immediate infusion of US$ to the tune of four billion is the minimum requirement for the country to reach a breathing space without sinking into perhaps irrevocable insolvency.

In the circumstances of non-infusionof four billion dollars, the entire state mechanism and administrative apparatus will encounter unimaginable economic and political catastrophe due to violent street riots, open agitations against the ruling apparatchiks, breakdown of law and order andcivil disturbances that may arise as spontaneous response from the suffering massessince they are at their tether’s end.

 The latest reports of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka reveal a disturbing development related to the wage earners both in the private and public sectors in which magnitude of decline in real wages very closely follows the rate of increase in money wages attributing further to the deterioration in standards of living of fixed income earning groups.This particular phenomenon of diminishing real wage rates is similar to an economic vicious cycle that gathers momentum withing to propel the wage earners to undertake an endless wage bargaining process with the employers in the form of   worker agitations, incessant work stoppages and breakdown of law and order  which ultimately results in hyperinflation as labour and production cost run behind each other in a circular pattern elevating the prices of goods and services into a new higher stratum. 

While inflation is hyper active in certain sectors of the economy, the possibility of experiencing recession parallelly in the manufacturing and service sectors poses a grave economic threat as far as political and administrative stability of the country is concerned.  In the face of looming economic disaster, the political leadership and the bureaucracy responsible for navigating the country at least towards a breathing respite behave, as it appears, like headless chickens running helter-skelter giving impression that they eitherdo not possess the required cognitive capacity for visualizing the  severity of the looming debacle appearing in the horizon or else they are in a trance of blissfull ignorance. It appears that the dereliction of the apparatchiks in the main political parties as well as wingnut political groups is triggered by their parochial objective of capturing political power at any cost withing the shortest possible time horizon without presenting a viable and logical strategic alternative to emancipate the tormented masses from the living economic inferno in which they are burned mercilessly day by day.

Short sighted economic policies encompassing the reduction of tax liability in 2019, the effort made to maintain fixed exchange rate, wanton practice of printing money and  ill affordable organic fertilizer policy increased the momentum of crisis while all negative economic and  geopolitical forces at global level further incinerating the already inflamed economy which continues moving Pell- Mell towards further aggravation of uncertainty, suffering and desperation as a nation.

The current economic crisis is multifaceted and its roots are penetrated into the core economic structure of the country which make it necessary for the decision makers to address thestructural economic strangulation that, like an octopus’sstrangling grip,tightens its suffocating  clutch across macro, meso and micro strata of the economy whichcan paralyze the whole financial system and the way of life in no time if counter measures are not initiated on an urgent basis to prevent the total collapse of the economy.

Bureaucrats and government policy makers including academia who supported the boondoggles of politicians and their myopic, vote catching and popularity driven policies to the hiltwithout making a whim of protest, due the needs of their personal agendaor the limitation of their periscopic capacity, should equally share the responsibility for current pathetic economic upheaval.

Government Strategy:

Since the home-grown solution adopted by the previous regime miserably failed to achieve any result at all, the incumbent government appears to be trapped in a boiling cauldron due to the fact that the tools available in the armory of strategy to the policy makers for selection are remarkably confined to a very narrow range, forcing the government to make a Hobson’s choice thatdirects the entire ruling as well as opposition apparatchiks to face a situation which can draw parallel with catch -22 scenario.

The strategy towards which government is involuntarilytilted, as widely articulated in public media, is the option of approaching the IMF to implore financial assistance in order to balance the chronical disparities that have roosted permanently in the country’s balance of payment account.

Although there was a general consensus between the government and opposition political partiesat the initial stage of the crisis on the argent need of seeking financial intervention by the IMF, the strength of cooperation extended by the opposition for the IMF solution appears to be waned away in the face of unrestrained greed for political powercharacterized bygung ho political rivalry, whichaways leads to the situation where urgent issues are frequently pushed into the backburner due to intrinsic nature of any power struggle. The same conventional and economically parochial approach dominated by gung-ho attitudes hasshadowed the same pattern to the microscopic details in the current catastrophic situation as well.

Medicine Needs not Necessarily be Tasty:

The IMF solution, although it appears to be the easiest and most plausible way out for finding an economic remedy to the general public, is a conditional offer wrapped up in a package that encompasses obligatory commitments on the part of the beneficiary in line with the standard procedure followed by the IMF when extending its lifeline for the counties which struggle to float without sinking in the turbulent economic ocean.The common scenario that can be anticipated from opposition parties in parliament and outside is to capitalize on the unpopular measures embedded in the loan package to their advantage, as it has been repeatedly practiced, for overthrowing the government by appealing to the emotionally overcharged masses inresorting to antigovernment rhetoric  shrouded with political venom, hypocrisy and hatred.

For instance, the IMF package includes preconditions such as restructuring the loss making public enterprises, reduction of budget deficits, increase of tax revenue, reduction of recurrent expenditure and rationalization of public sector employment structure before the release of the first tranche of loan which essentially result in more public anger and protests since the short term economic consequences of such recommendations intensify the economic pressure on the people who are already living under harsh and unbearable economic burden at their tether’s end.

This situation is already evident if attention is drawn to the press interview given by the current Governor of the Central Bank who, responding to the demand made by the parliamentarians to present a copy of the staff level agreement reached with the IMF,stated in no uncertain terms that the revelation of the agreement at this juncture would be a remote possibility and such publication might further rattle the already strained economic balancing act of Government. The underlying reality, as the Central Bank Governor’s trepidation connotes, is that the IMF recipe, as mysterious as Pandora’s box, consists of numerous and unpalatable suggestions that are better to be kept away from the knowledge of the hoi polloi in the country if the current economic lull is to be secured unabated at least for a breathing respite till economic over heat subdues to a tolerable degree.

IMF Lifeline is a Pontoon Bridge:

The IMF loan, similar to a pontoon bridge, delivers a temporary bridging facility for a country to overcome harrowing financial discrepancies in the balance of payment as an immediate external assistance; however, since the pontoon bridge should subsequently be replaced by a permanent bridge, the supplementary economic reforms, both political and policy level,  should be adopted by the governments in recipient countries in spite of their unpalatable nature  to ensure that the foundation is solidly laid down while the pontoon bridge is being usedtill the construction of a permanent bride by introducing structural adjustments to guarantee that the porous bottom is tightly sealed so that both velocity and quantity of leakages are at absolute minimum level if they cannot be totally ceased. 

The metaphor of the container with a porous bottom referred to in this article can be contrastedwith the economic paradigms thatsiphon off  a sizeable flow of national resources that caused further weakening of the very economic foundation in the resource strapped economy . The economically unpalatable policy actions, wrapped up in the bundle of IMF relief, are in fact designed to be instrumentalized in effectivelyarresting of the leakages caused by the porous bottom used in the metaphor. Any effort at filling the container without taking prior action for sealing the porous bottom destines to end up in adismal failure, similar to the experience undergone by many other countries, due to the fact that remedies are ineffective and unsustainable unlessright treatment is applied for elimination of causes, namely leaks, in this context, that genetically empowered the birth of crisis.

In keeping with the metaphor used in this article, the following sections are earmarked for examininghow those leakages and wastages inflicted a deep dent in the economy, similar to the effects of the porous bottom, and how those large holes, that gush out resources  at the bottom, overwhelm the positive outcomes that may be accrued through the utilization of external financial assistance offered by the IMF.

Glaring Wasteful Leakages of the Economy:

A quick review of the Sri Lankan economic model perpetually emulated by different ruling elites since the 1970’s demonstrates a remarkable bias toward mimicking of the development strategies adopted by many European nations which were in a position, in terms of their affluency and capacity, to articulate their future economic outlook based on   the philosophy that leansheavily on the need forwarfare orientation and social security consciousness.Sri Lanka strangely being a poor country with a rich country’s taste has been moving towards welfarism, concentrating more of its attention on  distribution aspects than on creation of wealth, which resulted in showering of low income segments of the population with eleemosynary allowances, non-productive stipends, free services and various other transfer payments that finally culminated in anunbearable imbalance between government income and expenditure on one hand and creation of a glutton nation that consumes more than what it produces.

In keeping with welfarist inclination, many of the left leaned political regimes, influenced by the blowing wind of socialism, created a leviathan state sector to merely provide employment opportunities in excess of the requirements of public sector institutions that finally created a Frankenstein which penetrated its tentacles, over powering its own creator, into all spheres of administration including the central decision-makingmechanism with the tacit approval of their political masters.

Over a time horizon of nearly thirty years, the economy has been gradually muddled wittingly or unwittingly andbrought into a situation of virtual paralysis that characterized with proliferation of public sector institutions,  establishment of cronyism dominated public bureaucracy, erosion of law and order, opaque business transaction and finally ruthless commercialism, an unhealthy aberration from  capitalism, which systematically pawed the way for the full blown economic imbroglio that all Sr Lankans are incarcerated in today.

Path for Salvation and Way Forward:

The writer is of the view that if the country wishes to reach a sustainable long run solution to the present economic turmoil, then thepolitical hierarchy as well as the hoi polloi of the country is to traverse along a hazardous boulevard that lies in a landscape characterized with high probability of facing with life threatening avalanches, treachery and betrayal, turning back at 90 degrees halfway through thejourney etc.  which as a whole is a tall order for the incumbent government to undertake.

However, sealing the wasteful leakages of the economy needs action in relation to the reduction of public service, restructuring of loss-making state enterprises, revisiting the provision of free tertiary education, reigning the audaciousbehaviour of trade unions, abolition of cronyism and introduction of many other progressive reforms accomplishment of which requires not only political resolution but also a visionary leadership that does not shillyshally, in the face of criticism and challenge, like a pole stuck in the soft earth.

Any hope of the country to be brought back to the economic situation of normalcy and thereafter of achieving long term sustainable development hinges on the willingness and capacity of the apparatchiks and the necessary sacrifices to be made by the peopleto initiate action, in writer’s perception, on the following activity schedule that requires a concerted effort guided bya strategic and  visionary leadership  in all spectrums of activity including administration and policy formulation, .

Reduce the Public Sector Employment by Fifty Percent:

Sri Lanka being a country with 21.8 population (2020 data) requires relatively small public sector; nevertheless, the government has become the largest employer with 1.5 million state sector workers which in statistical terms equals to the ratio of 1.5: 21.8 that stands at a ballpark figure of one government employee for every 14 persons in the population. Sri Lanka’s state sector cadre was raised by 61,000 persons to 1.52 million persons in 2020 from 1.46 million a year earlier despite the fact that additional tax burden is imposed  on private sector and the self-employed to contribute to the government coffersfordisbursing  thestate sector salaries and other affiliated allowances.

The proportion of government employees as a ratio of population is phenomenally over bulging and beyond the maintenance capacity of the government since the treasury has to mobilize a large sum of money on an annual basis out of the government coffers running into millions as employee emoluments, carried out on a priority basis. As pointed out by the Central Bank statistical bulletin,salaries and pensions devoured 84.6 percent of tax revenues in 2021 leaving a meager revenue to finance all the other economic activities of the country.

One of the reasons for creatinga leviathan public sector is relegated to the proliferation of state institutes which is clearly evident if an observation is made at the number village level officials including Grama Niladhari, Economic Officer, Development Officer, Samurdhi Officer, PHI, etc.  whose volume of work and tasks performed are hardly justifiable in contrast to the value of the service rendered as against the cost burden shouldered by the tax paying public for their maintenance.

Therefore, the proposed reduction in the state carder must be effective at all echelons of public service including the SLAS which has really become a prosthetic organ that botches  inmany of the management functions assigned to the SLAS cadre and is disappointed in performing the role of a self-propelled service providerthat can  infuse  the expected level of dynamism in the service delivery mechanism.

In the process of downsizing the state sector, the employees who are supposed to be retrenched due to the proposed restructuring must be assisted to find gainful employment mainly in the agricultural sector through the supply of necessary wherewithal, such as land, marketing structure and finance, under the government sponsorship.

In the same time further expansion of public sector cadre should be ceased with immediate effect which in the long run will serve two purposes namely reduction in wastage of manpower arising from ungainful employment and minimizing wasteful expenditure of public funds on remuneration for nonexciting jobs.

Streamline Public Sector Payment Structure:

Sri Lanka has a pampered public sector whose employees presume that they belong to aprivileged category of the population and deem in exceptionalism when it comes to the allocation of resources and priorities are decided by the government. This tendency has been amply demonstrated by certain worker categories who are possessed or dominated by mob mentality and attitudes rooted in the perceptual delusion of “might is right”. 

A number of public sector enterprises, inter alia, CEB and CPC, has been elevated to the level of privileged institutions by their acts of incorporation so that the employees of such institutions are entitled to enjoy above average salaries and perks that are beyond the reach of the employees who are not fortunate enough to find employments in the privileged sectors.

A review of public sector payment structure unveils the fact that it woefully lacks uniformity and rationality so that organizations with well-organized and domineering trade union apparatus have the privilege of developing their own payment system, very often extremely liberal, by siphoning off the tax revenue while over burdening the service receiver since the ladle for serving themselves is considered to be under their firmgrasp the situation of which is tactfully manipulated   with the blessing of politicians and the use of their power to twist the arms of   government.

A terse observation of the public sector employees’ pecuniary benefits and assistance in kind reveals that the system is made up with multiple facilities that run into, to name a few, housing loans, distress loans, festival advance, bonus, vehicle loans, duty free vehicle permits, attendance allowance, incentive payments, pension entitlement, unlimited over time, welfare allowance,  vacation leave, medical leave etc. which are all in the final definition added on to the total maintenance expenditure born by the government for each and every employee. As it appears in the public media very often, some of the incentive and motivational payments are of preposterous nature so that no rational justification can be made in support of such payments made out of the tax payers’ money since such payments neither serve a fruitful purpose in terms of increasing the efficiency of public service nor contribute to the general economic progress in the country.  It is very often alleged that overtime payments alone of employees in some institutions such as Colombo Harbour, CEB, CGR, CPC etc. far exceed the amount of total monthly wage bill since employees with the connivance of their superiors manipulate the task environment in workplace in such a way that overtime work becomes essential, perhaps a right as well, to maintain performance at least at floating level.

The system is badly in need of restructuring with standardization of payment structure rightacross the public sector on one hand and abolishing regressive incentive paymentshames that are not only redundant but alsoincongruous,viewed from the logical reasoning  of theelementary management principles.

Restrict Free Tertiary education: Nothing of value is free - Robert Heinlein.

As recorded by the Central Bank, a total of Rs. 290,237 million or 9.9 percent of the aggregate government expenditure was spent on education in 2019 that includes both tertiary and school education. The pertinent question in this context is if the colossal amounts spent out of the economically squeezed taxpayers’ money has been put to the optimum utilization in terms of the opportunity cost of funding is concerned.The other pathetic question is whether the recipients of free education are cognizant of the fact that, although education is free to then, someone else bears the cost of education since nothing is freely available in an economy except the things grabbed under looting and robbery.

Free education at school level can be considered as a sine qua non for the development of a disciplined society but, as the above citation by Robert Heinlein correctly emphasizes, the rationale in providing completely free education at tertiary level is not only unconvincingbut also crooked in terms of the behavior of beneficiaries, mainly the university students, in the face of their destructive, hooligan, irresponsible and mob mentalitybehaviour. Bulk of the time of the beneficiaries of free tertiary education is spent on thoroughfarein comparison to the time spent inside the lecture rooms, in involving with unruly political agitations over very often whimsical issues that have no connection whatsoever with the domain of tertiary educational issues.

The unruly and audacious conduct right round the year amounts to mockery ofusing free education that creates additional problems to the general public, their providers of funds and at large to the country by way of compelling the commuters to waste their time due tohours long blockage of public transport, damaging government property, disrupting the way of life and creating doomsday psychological scenario among the hoi polloi that eventually reflect  in causing an irreparable dent in the national GDP.

In view of the disturbing situation prevailing in the tertiary education sector, the writer’s contention is that the current unbridled system of free tertiary education must be curtailed and this initiative might lead to several positive outcomes;in particular  waning of unruly studentbehavior in public places, infusing a cognition of value to the beneficiaries of education and reducing the expenditure on free tertiary education which has been hardlyutilized for the purpose intended by educationists.

Downsize Political and Governing Apparatus:

Politicians and political hierarchy is considered as a vital component of the administrative system of any country and if one imagines the possibility of establishing a government machinery devoid of political parties, for that matter under any other name, then such thinking goes in tandans withanarchism, nihilism or idiosyncrasy which has no place in the modern governance dominated by high degree of complexity.

However, the way forward lies, as the writer perceives, on the ability and inclination to reduce the size of politicalhierarchy at central, provincial and local government levels with stripping of the numerous fringe benefits showered on them encompassing duty free vehicle permits, pension payment, free meals, staff allowances, sitting allowances, fuel allowances etc.  under the guise of making them more resourceful in providing better service to the public.

Instead of showering the apparatchiks at different strata of the system with pecuniary perks and various other benefits in kind, a living all-inclusive salary decided in view of their actual necessity in Sri Lankan context must be paid in lieu of the service rendered by themduring their tenure as people’s representative.

Mobilize Idle Agricultural Land:

A vast extent of fertile agricultural land that currently remained underutilized or unutilized must be mobilized into the main production atmosphere through intervention of government machinery resorting to reformationof existing regressive legal structure and concurrent administrative impediments that unduly delay  speedy reallocation of land. In this context, the ability of instrumentalizing the inflation as a practical tool for mobilizing agricultural resourcesshould not be underrated since inflation is in a way a blessing in disguise that has ascended on the country. In short, ride the inflation that has a remarkable capacity to produce miracle outcomes that are not possible in the absence of inflation!

Mobilization of idle agricultural land for productive husbandry delivers benefits in several economic amphitheaters such as contribution to the saving on import expenditure and to increasing the earning of the vitally required foreign exchange by promotion of export driven crop practices.

Restructure and Down size Public Enterprises:

Loss making public enterprises that serve as employment providers and pensioners’ temporary abodes must be restructured with the view to downsizing and converting them into financially sustainable organizations so that their existence can be reasonably justified in terms of input output ratio achieved by each enterprise. In the same breadth, the proliferation of public institutions right across geographic regions and economic sectors in a haphazard style should be done away forthwith to seal the leakage of government income to a substantial degree.

The main state services that must be subjected to scrutiny in this context are village level cadres and the sector specific organizations active in providing similar services to the same beneficiary groups situation of which does not only lead to proliferation and wastage of funds but also pose the problem of pinning or identifying the responsibility on a centralized authority when it comes to progress monitoring of the sector.

Reign Unruly Trade Unions:

Although trade unions are generally considered as partners in progress, in the Sri Lankan context, they have repeatedly demonstrated that their capabilities lie more in playing a destructive and annihilative role than undertaking responsibility of an even headed, level player’s  role in the period of yore. The top echelons of well-organized trade unions, affiliated to the main streamor wingnut political parties of the country, have shown that they are totally insensitive and oblivion to the ground situationas they areapparentlybrainwashed and blindfolded with political rhetoric parroted by their political masters. Social and political mayhem caused by such trade union conduct has beenon the upsurge  to an agonizing level so that wildcat strikes, agitation for Sisyphean demands and callous disregard for causing public inconvenience have become order of the day right round the calendar year.

The productivity loss, forfeiture of man-days, public inconvenience etc. caused by trade union conduct on a perpetual basis accumulate amounting to the billions of financial forfeiture year in and year out unabated.This harmful conduct of the trade unions is to be ceased sooner or later by showing them the legitimate and ethical role expected of trade unions to play and furthermore, their arbitrary bargaining power and arm-twisting capability must be reigned, tamed and pruned   by the government as a part of the exercise in sealing the leak of the economy for the betterment of the country.

Reduce the Price of Utilities:

With reference to the metaphor used in tis article, sealing the porous bottom is only one side of the problem and the other side of the phenomenon is how to generate internally and externally more income that enables filling the empty container of economy within a reasonably acceptable period of time.  For this purpose, the writer suggests that utilities such as electricity, fissile fuel and water tariff, main components that add to the cost of production, should be reasonably reduced to facilitate local manufacturers for boosting their production.

The perpetual practice followed by the governmentto instrumentalize utilities, such as water, electricity and water as a revenue collecting scooper by heaping up more taxes on their cost price when all other sources are exhausted, has resulted in negative economic impacts on the real production sectors throughout the economy due to the cascading effects emanated from the increased prices of utility, a vital part of production input,  on the overall cost of production.

Economic planners in the current situation of crisis, have to be mindful of two major undertakings to be accomplished, particularly, creating wealth in the country and patching up leaking wholes not only for stopping leakages but also to build up an excessreserve that works as a buffer for cushioningnegative impacts of similar economic shocks that may occur in future as well.

Establish Institutions to Maintain Check and Balance:

System development and establishment of sufficiently empowered institutions with legal clouts is a sine qua non  that can spearhead the maintained of check and balance which fulfills an  essential requirement that can accomplish a vital role by way of reducing cronyism, bribery, opaque tender procedure and inside dealing which in general siphon off substantial quantity of national wealth creating a yawning   imbalance between revenue and expenditure in addition to the erosion of  the trust of prospective investors placed on the government.

One of the urgent institutional facilities is to establish a permanent planning commission that does not rotate heads with the shift of political regimes, with the composition of bureaucrats, academicians, and people’s representatives that help the country in maintaining an acceptable level of consistency in economic policy making and minimizing the possibility of launching boondoggles at the expense of national resources.

Stand Away from Welfarism:

As it was discussed earlier, almost all of the political regimes that came into power after1956 have shown a remarkable tendency to emulate the development model that leans against the concept of welfare state which is heavily biased towards achieving parity in distribution of wealth rather than enlarging the total stock of wealth available in a country. In line with the welfare oriented economic policy, highly preferred by the apparatchiks due to its magical power to lure the votes of hoi polloi, respective governments have introduced a plethora of welfare and eleemosynary programs such as Samurdhi, Janasaviya and various other transfer payments in rivalry with other political regimes which systematically created a nation totally dominated by the dependency syndrome where government is expected to provide free food, pogeys and almost everything at no cost to them or at concessionary prices.

Welfarism is a murky concept as far as its ability to achieve social justice is concerned, since it has proven in empirical circumstances that the negative repercussions of welfarism very often outweigh the benefits it produces even in developed countries like the USA. Welfarism wherever it has been practised has proved with axiomatic evidence that it is a self-defeating policy strategy in respect of both benefactors and beneficiaries in the long run since welfarism is poverty maintenance device rather than a tool for alleviating pauperism.

In this context, one may be intrigued to pose a reasonable question whether the level of poverty, both absolute and relative, has been diminished or has shown signs of decline in Sri Lanka after perpetual and intensive implementation ofofnumerous poverty alleviation programs under the names of Samurdhi and Janasaviya, inter alia, over a period of two decades. In the hinge sight, it appears to be aprudent policy approach to minimize the contamination and dilution of development strategy with welfarism since the need for achieving social parity can stay in the backburner till economic growth produces adequate wealth for social distribution.  

Conclusion:

This article examines the causes of current economic pandemonium in Sri Lanka and compares the efforts made by government with the assistant of the IMF to recuperate the economy to the act of filling a container that has a porous bottom.

If the remedials measures are to reach fruition at an acceptable level of success, then the country needs go ahead with the under mentioned administrative and economic policy reforms, failure of which is tantamount to eternally living under the Sword of Damocles.

Way Forward in a Nutshell:

1. Reduce the public sector employment by fifty percent.
2. Streamline public sector payment structure.
3. Restrict free tertiary education.
4. Downsize political and governing apparatus.
5. Mobilize idle agricultural land for productive purposes.
6. Restructure and down size public enterprises.
7. Reign and discipline unruly trade unions
8. Reduce the price of utilities as a precursor for lowering cost of production.
9. Stand away from welfarism.
10. Establish institutions to maintain check and balance in all three levels; execution, legislation and judiciary.

yrnayake@yahoo.com.