Does Govt. care devastating inflation?

A series of unprecedented price hikes announced in Sri Lanka in the very recent past are certain to fuel people’s unhappiness over the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The administration is placing the burden of its military expenditure for the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam squarely onto the backs of working people, provoking deep social unrest. While the impact of that is overwhelming, the people are not unmindful of the fact that the question of the war is finally being addressed.

Life for ordinary working people and the poor is being stretched beyond all norms of endurance, due to a combination of soaring global oil and food prices and the government’s ever-increasing spending on its reactionary war against the LTTE.

Every newspaper today paints a vivid, compelling and painful portrait of the ‘Cost of Living.’

Every breaking news item on radio or TV, literally and metaphorically ‘breaks the camel’s back! Petrol, diesel, just before that rice, bread, and almost all essential items were blatantly increased with the Consumer Price Index rising to an all time high of 30%. In a doom and gloom scenario such as this, one wonders how the poor of our country actually survive? How do these poor marginalized people with inadequate incomes get together even one solitary meal to stave off their hunger and their children’s? It is becoming increasingly impossible for a middle-class person to survive, to meet the rising costs of food, fuel, transport, milk powder and other basic necessities. It is heartening to note that the President has spoken in terms of giving some increase of remuneration to the people.

It is not just basic essentials in terms of the food we consume that is affected, the rise in the cost of living envelopes electricity, transport, housing, communication, water and every conceivable amenity.

Recently, the government-controlled Electricity Board announced a 25 percent surcharge on consumers who fail to reduce their consumption by 20 percent as compared to their average usage over the previous two months. The surcharge however comes on top of the Electricity Board’s decision to boost unit charges by an average of 10 percent.

Telecom tariffs increased by an average of 20 percent from June.

In May, the state-owned Petroleum Corporation raised prices of petrol and diesel for the second time this year.

The Water Board is planning to increase its charges by 20 percent, citing the hike in gas and electricity prices.

These rises will automatically flow onto other products and services. The price of food items sold at hotels has already jumped by 15 to 25 percent and the cost of commodities produced by factories using gas as a fuel will be affected.

Most of the rural folk and now, even some in the suburban areas, have started growing their own vegetables, going back to using firewood and finding other ways and means of eking out an existence. Unable to cope, people are skipping or reducing meals and some are facing starvation!

The ever increasing cost of living, coming as it does, one on top of the other, is simultaneously creating another insidious culture of robbery, corruption, prostitution, pollution and even starvation!!!

People are angry about the continuous assault on living conditions and the complicity of all major parties.

The burning question among ordinary people is does the Government seriously and sincerely regret the rising cost of living on the poor, especially the middle class. Does the pontificating demanding judiciary care? Do the elite of Colombo’s society, whose only concern is what to be seen in or photographed in or what exclusive location to be seen at – do they care?

Who cares when roads are closed, sometimes for hours at a time, wasting public and private petrol/diesel, inconveniencing poor school children and the general public who are stranded with nothing to do except wait and wait. For whose convenience and protection? Is this not another burden on the cost of living? Is it not a criminal wastage of petrol and diesel and the hours spent idling, waiting for the VIPs to pass? But then again, the public woe is who cares?

Just how the government is supposed to square the advice of the business community for extraordinary measures on the economic front with fears about the disintegration of the social fabric, is yet to be realised.

We understand that inflation is rising largely due to factors whose origin does not lie in the domestic economy. Most experts view that increase in the international prices of oil and other commodities are responsible for the price increase.

However, the Government must not be blind to the dire need of a renewed focus on the growth objective. The best way to stimulate a more pragmatic response to inflation and its impact is greater facilitation of wealth creation by removing hurdles to investment, improved access to capital, fast-track as well as diligently improve fiscal reforms. Greater conservation measures on energy, both by households and institutions, as well as reduction in wasteful expenditure by the Government will all help.

There is no doubt, however, whose interests will prevail as the government strives to resolve this dilemma. As the outcome of Rajapaksa’s administration on price hikes continue to be demonstrated and for all the ministerial hand-wringing over a backlash, the needs of the ordinary citizen will quickly be sacrificed to the requirements of the robber barons of the bourgeoisie!

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