Eminent economist lashes out at Rajapaksa regime’s crony socialism

‘Mahinda Chinthana’ period of de-liberalisation had to depend on China for infrastructure development. Previous government’s “illiberal democracy and ethnic agenda has pushed the country into an economic abyss.

The LTTE and JVP in combination did a spectacular job at destroying the best of Sri Lanka’s political elite and the new government also came to power without an economic plan and it never developed one.

He noted that he has observed the dire state of the Sri Lankan state or in academic jargon, a serious lack of state capacity, and he came to the conclusion quite quickly that even fairly simple reforms were difficult and perhaps in some cases impossible to push through because of the “dysfunction” of the Sri Lankan state.

These observations were made by International renowned Sri Lankan–born economist Dr. Razeen Sally who is a Visiting Associate Professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

He was delivering the 69th anniversary oration of the Central Bank in Colombo on Wednesday.

The present Sri Lanka government came to power without an economic plan and it never developed one and it eventually unveiled a “Christmas tree wish list” of things that’s going to happen by 2025, he added.

He noted that he has observed the dire state of the Sri Lankan state or in the academic jargon a serious lack of state capacity and he came to the conclusion quite quickly that even fairly simple reforms were difficult and perhaps in some cases impossible to push through because of the “dysfunction” of the Sri Lankan state.