‘Entrusting govt. with task of managing economy is like handing over a smartphone to a cobbler for repairs’ by Saman Indrajith

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The SJB says the government is unable to steer the country in the right direction, even on the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as it is incapable of managing the economy. Entrusting it with economic management is like handing over a smart phone to a cobbler for repairs.

Addressing the media at the Opposition leader’s office in Colombo on Sunday (27) SJB MP and former State Minister of Finance, Eran Wickremeratne, said that the time had come for another group of internationally recognised competent people to take control of the country’s economy as the international community has no confidence in the country’s rulers and that the country should be handed over to those who can handle the economic and financial management, professionally.

Wickremaratne said that people would not be able to recover from this crisis as long as those who mismanaged the economy and made wrong decisions were still in positions of power. “Especially the cronies of the government who had made it worse, and the government is still keeping them in the same places even though they have done great harm to the country and the people.”

MP Wickremeratne said that many government MPs had no understanding of the economy. “They are trying to justify the government’s incompetence by claiming that there was a decline in the GDP during the previous government. The economic development of a country cannot be measured by a single factor such as the GDP growth. The economic development of a country and its benefits can be accurately measured by the progress in a number of sectors such as foreign reserves, exchange control, assets and liabilities, fiscal deficit, government revenue etc., MP Wickremeratne said.

The report of the International Monetary Fund on Sri Lanka, which the government claimed it had not received, had now been published, Wickremeratne said. “The 95-page report reveals several matters that repeatedly pointed out by the SJB for more than a year in Parliament and elsewhere.”

The report clearly states that the root cause of the current crisis in Sri Lanka is the decrease i government revenue due to tax cuts. “The IMF says there is no scientific basis for such a tax cut, which reduced the country’s income by Rs. 600 billion being one-third of the total state revenue,” MP Wicremeratne said.

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Disclaimer: ‘Entrusting govt. with task of managing economy is like handing over a smartphone to a cobbler for repairs’ by Saman Indrajith - Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Latheefarook.com point-of-view

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