BMICH during the Deyata Kirula exhibition.
I welcome the new developments in Sri Lanka (roads, ports, airports, buildings, malls). Dev isn’t a zero sum game and that’s part of it. It’s important, however, to invest as heavily (or more) in education and health, which is what sustained the country even through war. Many of the things we’re building are for a middle class that doesn’t exist yet. Without education and health, there won’t be enough people for the shops or cars for the roads.
Wither Socialism
People decry the lack of democracy, but there’s a bigger decline in the socialist part of the Democratic Socialist Republic. Mahinda’s party, the SLFP, was once considered to the left of the UNP, but so many UNPers have crossed over that it’s now moved to the capitalist right. Hence you get privatizations, big developments, big business – all from a party that once mocked the UNP for such things. People talk about the decline of the UNP, but if you look at UNP plans for Colombo or Sri Lanka, they’re not very different. Indeed, some of the projects ongoing now are old UNP ideas.
Why Social Policies
While infrastructure and stuff is important, it’s important to remember why. Most of this money comes from the people of Sri Lanka, via taxes. If you account for the fact that most Chinese money is loans, then the vast majority comes from Sri Lankans, either now or future generations. If you buy a car, the tax ensures that the government gets a car. If you buy a meal, the government gets a bite. Et cetera. Its our money.
Hence, while it’s nice to have stuff, it’s also important to develop people that can afford that stuff, and preferably build it in the first place. For me the most obvious investments here are education and health. Education because you need trained people that can hold and create jobs. Sri Lankans are ready to learn, parents spend money even in a ‘free’ education system, but the system doesn’t work.
The Universities are both overcrowded and broken (leading to higher unemployment) and most education goes entirely around the public system (international schools, tuition classes, private diplomas and degrees). The government should invest in some proper schools so we can build the next generation of infrastructure ourselves.
I say health because it’s essential for everything else, and people are going around that as well. Those are investments in people, and we need that with equal or greater priority to investments in stuff.
Invest on health? Nonsense, let’s just increase taxes on cancer sticks :P
no jobs for state uniz do not apply for every uni or every degree course.
this is mainly true b’se of few reasons.
1.two many art or similar degree holders
2.idea that a state uni degree guarantees a job.
3.jvp
so now there are too many ppl with degree in areas which have few job opportunities.
One of my favourite posts Indi. The education system needs a complete overhaul. And medicine needs some robust investment; decent equipment and higher quality drugs would go a long way.
“Hence you get privatizations, big developments, big business – all from a party that once mocked the UNP”
This is incorrect.
There have been no privatisations since 2004, instead there has been renationalisation: Apollo, SLIC, Srilankan Airlines, Hilton to name a few. Greater state involvement in SLT/Mobitel and vast expansion of the state in business – from Mihin to the things run by the armed forces (restaurants, cruise lines, holiday resorts) etc etc. All this plus the expropriation bill and a promise to take back 37000 acres from the plantations under the budget.
Have a look at the opening remarks of the2011 budget speech, the president talks of how the country went on a “destructive path” from 1977 and how this should be reversed. This only serves to underline the facts above – we are in an era of big government- in every sense of the word, from the giant cabinet, the public sector of 1.2 or 1.3m people (of a workforce of 7m) and an enormous expenditure on the whole edifice.
http://www.treasury.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=226:budget-2012&catid=76:budget-2012
The big investment is either state or crony driven, not by public tender but set up in backroom deals, hence my reference to the Russian oligarchs in your other post.
How did Gazprom get into the picture for oil exploration, for example?