Earning its keep

Infrastructure development is a double-edged sword for small countries with even smaller economies. Obviously, infrastructure development is the backbone of large-scale development, yet the price tag that comes attached often pushes countries into debt when they cannot achieve their planned growth goals in quick time. In Sri Lanka infrastructure development, particularly expensive highway building has sparked new debates on pragmatic development that needs to be listened to.

Once the war was wrapped up the call was for development. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is both credited and reviled for pushing ahead with large scale infrastructure development. Credited because many point out it was necessary to foster development and reviled because it opened up the country to large debts and diplomatic vulnerabilities to China. Allegations regarding corruption also began to swirl around these ventures with many arguing later projects were overpriced and overdesigned, pointing to a lack of clear vision on the side of policy makers. 

Any new Government will have to deal with debt that has ballooned to nearly 90% of GDP, according to the last budget, which added most of the projects sprinkled around Hambantota that had been kept out of the consolidated fund by the Rajapaksa regime. The cry of corruption also spawned a fresh movement for good governance and a citizen consciousness for financial accountability, up to that point largely absent from public discourse. Few have also tried to make sense of the whole line of carts placed before the horse, as it were, in Hambantota, in the shape of port, airport and highways, which have added millions of dollars in debt but has failed to promote significant economic growth.

It defied the conventional understanding that highways provide a service of sorts and should follow rather than lead growth. For example many pundits have pointed out passenger traffic alone cannot justify a highway but rather it should provide a connection between production centres and markets. Only then can a highway earn its keep. The Southern Expressway for example, despite its convenience to tourists, has done little to bring down transport costs or increase economic activity in the south. Many fear the recently kicked off central highway connecting Kandy to Colombo, while garnering many votes, might not make economic sense at this point in time because it does not connect to economic zones or similar manufacturing centres.

The undeniable wow-factor of highway projects also appealed to the type of politics practiced by former President Rajapaksa. If it is seen then it must be so, was the belief of the day and a parallel policy for public transport was left begging by the wayside. This also means that projects such as the airport highway end at an inconvenient point, at times creating more congestion. Easy, convenient and practical forms of public transport that would have been far cheaper than highways were not looked at, leaving Colombo and other urban centres to fend for themselves.

Creating many highways for Sri Lanka’s fleet of about five million vehicles, of which only about one third can use the infrastructure and even then not on a daily basis has left a huge gap between what is needed and what exists. Highway development needs to be matched with a comprehensive public transport and overall economic growth framework to justify its creation. This is what the next batch of policymakers needs to urgently tackle.