Samurdhi and economic realism

Acting Minister of Information and Media Dilan Perera by countering UNP MP Sajith Premadasa's invective against Samurdhi officers has helped underscore the great importance the State is continuing to attach to poverty alleviation and the development of the rural sector, besides expressing the Government's moral disapproval of any contemplated acts of barbarism against public sector personnel who have been assigned a vital chore.

Time and again the Government's institutional mechanisms to alleviate poverty have come under attack from UNP politicians, giving the objective observer the impression that the poor of this country would perhaps not be a chief concern of the UNP, but it is plain that a sizeable segment of our population lives in abject poverty.

These sections which are mired in poverty would be a principal concern of the Lankan State and the Government is, indeed, morally obliged to fend for them until they are sufficiently empowered to stand on their own feet.

The Government's Samurdhi scheme - a trail blazer in poverty alleviation in this country - has been in the firing line of the Opposition but we wonder whether the Opposition could suggest a viable alternative to the Government's poverty alleviation strategy. If so, the Opposition is obliged to highlight it now at a time when these issues are constituting hotly-debated subjects, both locally and internationally.

The pertinence of poverty is so great that President Kumaratunga considered it fit to observe in France, while addressing the 33rd UNESCO General Conference that; "Peace can only be acquired through economic development to eliminate poverty and despair and through dialogue and understanding."

There is, therefore, no downplaying the importance of poverty alleviation as an avenue to peace and stability both nationally and internationally. However, what local policy-makers need to note along with the local public is that poverty alleviation should not be confused with the well-known dependence syndrome.

Under the latter, the poor are reduced to mere passive recipients of Government handouts and relief packages. This is a fallacious understanding of poverty alleviation. Relief and assistance, materially and otherwise, need to be siphoned to the poor to enable the latter to develop a degree of self-dependence and empowerment, aiming at the overall result of a dynamic and entrepreneurial social segment which will be self-sustaining and not dependent on the State.

This is the true meaning of poverty alleviation and we hope this message would be driven home to the targeted social segment. If at all Samurdhi needs to be modified, it would be from this perspective of State relief as a means to self-sustenance. Meanwhile, constructive rather than destructive criticisms of State-led poverty alleviation would need to be made.

The Opposition would also do well to remember that there are no Mantras to development. We have been an agricultural country from time immemorial and although this fact does not make it obligatory on the State to pursue an agriculture centred policy only, it is best that we remember that a realistic approach should be adopted to development which acknowledges the contribution of the agricultural sector.

Accordingly, until we build a sound indigenous, industrial base, the problems in local agriculture would need to be resolved systematically. We have, for instance, had a bumper paddy harvest but as the recent Parliamentary debate indicated, storage of paddy is a continuing difficulty. Marketing too presents problems.

The energies of the Opposition would be better spent addressing these issues than by levelling strictures at the State's poverty alleviation efforts.