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| Saturday, 13 March 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| President addresses business community: Freedom Alliance, a caring Govt in a global economy By Shirajiv Sirimane President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga addressing the business community at President's House last night, said the United People's Alliance would be a caring government in a globalised economy. While, strong support will be given to Small and Medium sector entrepreneurs, large scale foreign investment will be encouraged. Agriculture, Human Resource Development and Education had been neglected and priority would be given to these segments, the President said. She said that new markets would be found for small farmers and a better marketing network would be introduced for them to go global. "We would give the maximum support for Agriculture and the Small and Medium sector enterprises which is Sri Lanka's back bone. This does not mean that the future government would discourage large scale investors or the present or future foreign investors," she said. The President said the new manifesto would be a road map towards development. It has taken in to account past mistakes and put forward proposals, which would suit the modern globalisation world. "The manifesto is proposing a government which cares for the people, in a globalised economy," she said. In Sri Lanka, 90 percent of investments had been made up of Small and Medium entrepreneurs and even in the plantation sector 60 percent of tea is being produced by Tea Small holders. The Tea Shakthi movement introduced by the PA Government laid the foundation for this and similar projects were introduced to the coconut industry as well. It took over 200 years for Europe and USA to introduce a free market economy, while in Sri Lanka it was imposed within four to five years. "Sri Lanka was not ready for it at that time," she said. China and India are opening their markets very slowly and they are leading their nations towards being developed countries. "This is the example Sri Lanka should follow," she said. She said their new partner JVP has also endorsed this and they are not against an open economy. "The JVP is more peaceful in their democratic process even better than our party or the UNF," she said. Though many are talking about regaining Sri Lanka a lot has been lost mainly due to escalating prices of essential goods and corruption. The peace process came to a standstill and the economy was run very badly. She said that shocking legislature such as the Inland Revenue Act was introduced to safeguard a few individuals. Sri Lanka lost over Rs. 200 billion and even the International Monetary Fund cut off some aid intended to Sri Lanka. "This is not because I took over three ministries," she said. The IMF is not keen on internal politics of a country and as long as there is no corruption and violation of human rights aid would flow. There are many unemployed undergraduates. However some of them do not have the requirements and guidance needed to find employment in the private sector. "This is due to wrong education attitudes which must change," she said. Education was one area that was badly neglected in the past two years and even World Bank aid for education was under utilised by nearly 50 percent. The smallest ever allocation for education was in the past two years. She said that though an open economy was in place not a single computer was given to national schools until 1994. "Our Government introduced Computer as a subject to schools," she said. She said that plans are under way to have six more universities and preference would be given to foreign languages and science, which have been neglected. Soon after the introduction of the open economy, Sri Lanka was notorious as being the country with the highest alcohol addiction and suicide rate and the consumption of drugs, too, was fast catching up. Under the previous PA Government this was brought down. She said a future Government under her leadership would have good governance, efficient management and one which would be free of corruption. It would make the public service more effective, efficient and skilful. This would be done by offering high salaries. Some corrupt deals during the last two years would be investigated and if necessary cancelled. She said priority of the next Government would be to restore law and order and to continue the peace process. She assured that a military solution is not on their agenda and the final aim is a long term negotiated settlement which would bring the LTTE to Parliament. The JVP, too, has agreed to this. She said 90 percent of the people who died or were injured were under the age of 35 and this was very tragic. The President said she was compelled to dissolve Parliament since the Government was not cooperative. "I did my best and more to cooperate with the Government but with no avail. Both parties could not work together." "There were several key decisions made without informing me and I was briefed on these development and decisions only from the media the following day. This situation was taking the country backwards. There was a near total breakdown of government and I was compelled to dissolve Parliament for the good of the people. People of the country had given me a mandate on two occasions and it was my duty to safe guard the country," she said. The President said she was abused on State media at least ten times a day and even to get a 20-minute message to the nation on the State television, her staff had to wait for seven days. "So much of lies were published." She said that after the forthcoming elections a Constitutional Council would be formed in a bid to introduce a new constitution. The proposal would be then put to a referendum and forwarded to the Supreme Court. The new Constitution would be a mixture of both the present and the old system where the Prime Minister would be once again supreme. |
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