Battle over bottlenecks!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011 01:25 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Cassandra Mascrenhas, Cheranka Mendis, Uditha Jayasinghe and Shezna Shums

Charges were hurled in many directions at the wrap-up session of the two-day Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Economic Summit yesterday, dealing with breaking bottlenecks in development.

After two days of grappling with industry specific and macro subjects, the over 300 participants of the summit were perhaps entertained as the final session almost turned out to be a political TV talk show being beamed live at a business forum.

After a more sedate listing of key bottlenecks to development by Government MP and Minister of State Management Reforms Naveen Dissanayake, UNP MP Sajith Premadasa and JVP MP Vijitha Herath, when the turn of TNA MP Sumanthiran came, the latter was blunt.

He said that the key bottleneck for real and inclusive development in the country was right at the top.

“If one were to be brutally honest, the question is in regard to bottlenecks and in fact the malady that we face in the country today in regard to development or anything else is that there is one bottleneck and that is right at the top and that is the truth,” Sumanthiran charged.

“If one is to look at the governance structure today, we have a large number of ministers in the Government, but if one was to ask the question if any of them can drive a major developmental project, the answer is no; unless the CEO of the country or his brothers agree, there is no development that can take place,” he added.

Soon after, the UNP firebrand MP and Chief Economic spokesman Dr. Harsha de Silva used the Economic Summit platform to reveal how the sale of 10 acres of land in Galle Face to Chinese aviation defence equipment firm CATIC to build a luxury hotel has violated the Constitution as well as the Strategic Investments Act.

These remarks saw Dissanayake charged up, telling Dr. de Silva not to use the Economic Summit for petty political gain, but to focus on development issues. The participants of the summit, which comprised business leaders and corporate executives, applauded Dissanayake’s rebuttal. Later on Dr. Harsha said that the case cited was an issue of governance which has bearing to development.

The Government MP’s response to Sumanthiran’s allegation was that in reality it wasn’t so and Ministers and Government MPs had freedom to carry out their projects.

Given the fact that all were politicians, the session saw political salvos fired at each other or representing parties making some to emphasise that core private sector issues weren’t addressed. However, the session also dealt with the issue of corruption and development, how public private partnerships could be fostered, effectiveness of public sector and immediate steps that could be taken to resolve bottlenecks.

Since two offspring of past political leaders were present, the glory days or effectiveness of leadership and success of late President R. Premadasa, Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali as well as open economy architect late President J.R. Jayewardene were often used or highlighted.

Despite the massive political majority enjoyed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime and the successive loss of the UNP, the panel was also asked whether a coalition government could be the panacea for all ills and to unlock the bottlenecks.