Only around 20 percent of productive work had been done by previous governments from the loans that were taken in the past, a member of the National People’s Power (NPP) representing the Colombo District, Sameera Alwis said.
Around 80 percent of the donor funding cannot be accounted for, he said, at a special business forum hosted by the importers and exporters and other shipping clearing sector associations at the Grand Oriental Hotel yesterday.
He also said that Sri Lanka imports amount to around US$ 12 billion and imports surpass with an export–import gap of US$ 20 billion to be bridged, for which exports have to increase.
“In 1992, both Sri Lankan and Vietnam total annual exports stood at around US$ 2.5 billion and while Sri Lanka increased this by around US$ 10 billion in 20 years, Vietnam increased it to a staggering US$ 353 billion.”
“Sri Lanka ICT exports are around US$ 2 billion while a province in India achieved that. We have plans to increase ICT revenue to US$ 5 billion and also exports by a sizeable number,” Alwis said.
NPP Colombo district representative Chathurnga Abeysinghe said that they know all about the delays, inefficiencies and corruption that is going on at the ports.
“The best way out of this is to totally reduce human-to-human contact and move into online plants and we will take steps to do this.”
He said that Singapore has one of the most efficient ports in the world and they have deployed AI at the Customs.
He also said that many governments talked about improving the ‘Doing Business Index’ (DBI).
“What happened so far in the political history of this country is that politicians got richer while the people became poorer and the DBI decreased. The NPP has plans to change this.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said that today, the general understanding among the public is that if someone wants to get something done by a government department, they first have to ‘find a person who knows another person’ working there. “This is a shameful situation and we are here to change this and create a new working culture among the public sector.”
She said that human values of society too have dropped and there is a lot of suspicion among people and communities and this is something they also want to change. “There is talk of a ‘system change’ and for this to happen one must first create a ‘system’ and the NPP is there to do that,” the Premier said.
She also said that they have fielded the highest number of female candidates including in Colombo and the next Parliament would have the highest ever female representation in its history.
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