Ban vehicle imports totally

Thursday, 24 September 2020 02:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Government should be commended for taking the initial steps to curb the importation of non-essential items and in the process temporarily stopping the importation of motor vehicles, in order to save valuable foreign exchange.

There will certainly be a section of people who will be up in arms against this, but it is time that the country should move into an austerity gear and all citizens irrespective of their political affiliations should sacrifice certain comforts and goodies to bring some stability to our country which is the need of the hour.

During the early ’60s, the country was going through a similar crisis over foreign reserves and the then Government took stringent decisions to curb the situation by imposing restrictions on imports.

Those who can remember that era will recall how at a time when there were no televisions and mobiles and people were solely dependent on radio news and newspapers for current news, one morning when we opened the newspapers, the headlines carried the news ‘importation of all vehicles banned’ just like that and for almost 10 years no vehicles of any type including cars, lorries, vans, buses, motorcycles and tractors were allowed to be imported. This would have saved a huge amount of foreign exchange for the country which was a major issue at the time.

There were so many car importers at the time who humbly accepted the Government’s stand for the sake of the country, and no one died due to non-availability of a vehicle to take them to a hospital, nobody sacrificed a family wedding, an outing or a pilgrimage for want of a vehicle. The vehicles that were there were carefully repaired and maintained to run without any problems. Today the streets are jammed with vehicles and I feel that the number of vehicles on the road is more than sufficient for our country.

There will no doubt be some related issues consequent to this, mainly the loss of revenue to the Government by way of duties and other levies imposed on the importation of vehicles, loss of employment, etc. There will have to be a gradual shift in motor trade from vehicle sales to vehicle maintenance.

Taking the present economic situation that we suffer, due to so many reasons, it is time that the Government took strong decisions in the interest of the country to save the drain on our foreign exchange by curtailing non-essential imports and vehicle imports will rank number one in the list.

Let every citizen stand by such moves in the sake of austerity to regularise the crisis situation. For a start the Government should impose a total ban on importation of motor cars, vans, double cabs and motor cycles/three wheelers initially for a period of three years and review the situation thereafter and I am positive that it will not have any adverse effects on our daily lives.

SariputhraColombo