Sri Lanka in need of a quick win

by admin
Nov 25, 2008

Earlier this month President Mahinda Rajapakse unveiled a budget comprising of tax rises and heavy borrowing to support the government’s war efforts against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and declared that offensive operations in the country's north would continue.

 

Noting that the war and its success appeared to be the lynchpin of the budget, observers point out that a quick victory is crucial.

 

Neither the island’s already frail economy nor the Sinhalese people, who are facing one of highest inflation rates in the world – 23.4% in October, would take the burden of an expensive war for long.

 

“If they can finish the war soon then people may bear with them, but not forever” the country manager of a leading multi-national firm in Colombo told IPS.

 

Observers feel that Sinhalese public will only tolerate the economic hardships they are facing provided there are regular success stories from the battle front.

 

Whilst Sri Lankan military has managed to capture territory from the LTTE, its goal of destroying the outfit continues to be a distant dream.

 

Sri Lankan military chief has had to revise his timeline for wiping out the LTTE many times over the past two years.

 

As defence expenditure continue to rise and casualty numbers continue to mount, Sri Lanka is desperately in need of a quick win.

 

Sri Lankan eeconomists are concerned that the government has got the war euphoria mixed up with economic management.

 

Whipping up patriotic fervour in expectation of military victory may indeed distract attention from the worsening economic outlook. But that strategy needs victory to come soon, said the Economist in a recent article published on Sri Lanka’s budget.

 

Economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar at George Washington University, commenting on the budget reflected similar views and said that as long as the military maintains its successes in the northern battles, Rajapakse would be able to muster public support despite the country's economic woes, reported IPS.

“In spite of being the second largest public expenditure [after public debt repayments] and the major contributor to widening budget deficit, as long as the military advances and successes continue on the ground there is very little likelihood of the huge defence budget impacting negatively on the overall economy of Sri Lanka in the short to medium term,” Sarvananthan told IPS.

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