The budget that will be presented to the Parliament is not the first or the last budget in the country. We all saw how budget proposals were made in the past several decades since Independence. But the 2024 budget is something totally different from all previous budgets because President Ranil Wickramasinghe has already turned it in the right direction by consulting the private sector.
Last week almost all the media reported how President Ranil Wickremesinghe prioritized private sector proposals in the upcoming 2024 budget. Earlier the President expressed his commitment to prioritizing proposals from the private sector in the 2024 budget and conducted separate examinations of related areas.
Last Wednesday the President met several private sector representatives and discussed the reform programs aimed at moving from crisis to recovery and sustainable growth. During the meeting, the private sector presented proposals to increase revenue and improve efficiency in the public sector.
The President announced his intention to prioritize the inclusion of proposals from the private sector in the 2024 Budget to be presented to the Parliament on 13 November and to separately examine related areas. The President discussed reform programs designed to help the country recover from the economic crisis it is currently facing and move towards sustainable growth.
Leaders of private sector institutions presented proposals to the President, focusing on increasing Government revenue and efficiency, as well as measures to support various industries, including attracting investors, the tourism industry and the garment industry. They requested to prioritize measures aimed at overcoming the current economic crisis and addressing the challenges faced by business people in various sectors in this year’s budget.
The President expressed his commitment to give careful consideration to the ideas and suggestions put forward by the leaders of private sector institutions. He intends to conduct separate discussions on each of these areas in the future. The efforts made by the President to achieve economic stability in the country were commended by the leaders of private institutions.
This latest move taken by President Ranil Wickremesinghe shows the entire world how mature, intelligent, experienced, farsighted and educated leader he is and the clear and correct vision he has for the country and the people. Anybody can very clearly see that he is giving prominence to the rescuers of the Sri Lankan economy and not to the parasites of the Sri Lankan economy. All former leaders did the opposite. Even a kindergarten child will tell who the rescuer is and who is the parasite! The rescuer is the private sector, and the parasite is the public sector.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe is doing what should have been done by all former Sri Lankan leaders several decades ago. Sri Lanka is facing the current economic crisis as a result of not giving due place to the country’s real breadwinner, the private sector in the past several decades since Independence. All former leaders gave in to the pressures put on them by parasites.
What was done during the past several decades since Independence is giving priority to the parasite of the country and the nation and nourishing the parasite wasting hard-earned money of the private sector. The public sector did everything possible to stop, slow down and discourage the growth of the private sector using various rules, and regulations and wasting time and money of the private sector business community.
Exactly knowing that they get paid if they mark `In’ and `Out’ almost all public sector workers except armed forces waste the time and money of the people without thinking twice. They did not stop there. They made sure that they get paid for the overtime which used to get done their private work. They robbed from the photocopy paper to tables and chairs in the office while the higher officials enjoyed foreign tours spending millions of rupees and brought items that were unusable! One example is unusable train engines and train compartments.
According to the prominent Economist who was attached to the Management Faculty of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura Prof. Janaka Kumarasinghe and several other prominent and popular economists and scholars attached to local and foreign universities, the Sri Lankan workforce in the private sector improved and pushed upwards the Sri Lankan economy while the Sri Lankan state sector pull it downward and weaken it. They proved this with all relevant updated statistics during a live television programme telecast over the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation some time ago.
Therefore there is no argument at all about the accuracy of this statement. Even a kindergarten child can understand this simple truth just by looking at how the state sector and the private sector operate and observing the outcome of both sectors often revealed in the COPE meetings and telecast over all television channels. By now, the entire country knows very well that it is the private sector that feeds the state sector with great difficulties, and it is the public sector that has acted like a parasite in this country during the past 75 years.
It is highly admirable the step taken by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to obtain proposals from the private sector for the betterment of the country’s economy.
