The defeatism rife in society these days is not merely disgusting, it is hilarious. The most common question being asked is about the country’s viability as a nation. Could we recover — step back from the brink?
It’s all about loan restructuring and tiding over with an IMF bailout.
This writer is not saying there is a problem with an IMF bailout, so-called. But why have we psychologically keeled over? Why are we collectively supplicant, and speaking in one voice as if we badly need to be rescued with an infusion of cash — after which, if we are lucky, we are told, we may have a chance.
Most people I know that are in domestic debt do far better than this.
Those in domestic debt, do not go for a ‘bailout.’ Some do, and there are many who have had to resort to that type of rescues as a result of the adverse circumstances from the pandemic. They borrow from friends, and ‘returnable when able’ though the stated grounds on which such lending takes place, is more slogan than reality.
But strangely, most don’t borrow. They are known debtors, and who could possibly blame them when the pandemic had such far reaching repercussions. But a lot of them got out of debt-jail and then made progress to a point here they gave others jobs.
Investment
How exactly? They innovated, and found new streams of income. They may have hustled — yeah, who could blame them — but a lot of them were up and away before you could spell millionaire.
A country has to produce its way out of a crisis and defeatism is the most ridiculous way to set about it.
If it’s only for domestic consumption, that too would reduce imports but there is this little matter of incentives.
Ideally, the State should incentivise solar power generation at the domestic level for instance, but this has not been done and instead those who opt for solar power generation are hamstrung by a laborious licensing process.
Rounding out the top five countries that produced solar energy, Vietnam is at number four, and installed an estimated 4.8 GW in 2019. Vietnam’s success for the year was spurred by a Government policy that encouraged investment in solar energy by guaranteeing producers an above-the-market price. (Quote courtesy Investopidia.)
Sri Lanka’s only way out we are told, is the IMF. The IMF may or may not be the only way to tide over the immediate difficulties, but Sri Lanka’s only way out is to ‘manufacture, baby, manufacture’ to borrow from a U.S election year campaign slogan, ‘drill, baby, drill.’
Any country that doesn’t take up the challenge to innovate and produce its way out of temporary economic trouble, is not worth its membership in the international community.
The first problem is that our approach is so defeatist, we are not considering the current crisis as a temporary impediment in the first place. The experts are telling us, this is Armageddon — and they are echoed by the leader of the Opposition who hilariously told Al Jazeera recently that we as a country are facing economic Armageddon; end times on the domestic economic front.
Irrespective of the reasons for the current setback — what good does it do arguing about the reasons for the crisis? — The way out is not to whine about how badly we have mismanaged for the last 70 years.
That does not buy us a reprieve anyway — this constant carping about the past. We should incentivise identified areas, and leave it to the private sector to get on with the rest of the job. We are not in the list of the 46 least developed countries, obviously. But guess who is? Bhutan for instance, and Myanmar are.
Integration in value chains and innovative networks makes Mauritius and Kenya two of the most innovative countries.
Mauritius has expertise in the areas of sugar and textile value chain enhancement — value chain being a step by step process of transforming product idea to reality.
Sri Lanka needs a comprehensive value chain analysis involving every conceivable product that either has a domestic or international market.
The greatest impediment in making that a reality is that the wrong people are picked to engineer change. Those who could engineer change are not academics or think-tank pundits.
Change makers are those who have proven delivery capabilities and proven capacity to have generated ideas even if they left the implementation to someone else.
Instead of creating value chains, we are busy picking people who offer scholastic analysis. It’s hoped that the Economic Council that has been appointed would only concern itself with general policy that would involve making recommendations on fiscal and monetary policy for instance.
Those who create value chains on the other hand cannot be found at think-tanks.
They can be found by examining what they have delivered and what they have already presented by way of ideas.
It should ideally take only four or five capitalists to set Sri Lanka back on the course of financial independence — with debts reasonably paid off. Our debt position is exaggerated.
The sums of money we need for exports in a given ‘season’ of say three months are paltry, relatively speaking. These sums don’t call for people to be mouthing off about Armageddon.
They call for just one thing — innovation. There are two major impediments with regard to a lack of innovation in this country, say in contrast to China, and India — or even Vietnam, and the Mauritius.
The first issue is that talent is not recognised and rewarded. Top Government posts have been doled out on the basis of who contributed most to campaign funds — and we complain about a State sector that does not deliver.
Inconvenient
It doesn’t matter in a way, because the State sector cannot innovate to see us out of the current crisis. The private sector can, but identified private sector actors have not been empowered with seed funding and something — anything — that could give them a kickstart.
Policymakers seem to labour under the misconception that having the best talent at Government policymaking bodies would policy-wise, put the country on the right track.
In one sense, policy-wise, we do not have to get on the so called right track. What we need is to manufacture, and create those value chains.
As a community the Muslims do it best at the domestic level at least. The major exporters are from the majority community and those who do the best work are generally the unhonoured and the unsung. In recent times a lot of them have had their hands tied due to the shortage of raw materials because the country — at the most inconvenient moment — chose to shut itself out. But, most who rely almost a hundred percent on local raw materials have soldiered on.
They continue to innovate and export but most of them are constantly harassed due to over-regulation and bureaucratic red tape. But worse than that, the mindset doesn’t exist, to innovate ourselves out of trouble.
Instead, our attitude — nation-wise — has been to be fatalistic. If it’s not coming from anybody else — it isn’t — it will come from this writer. We are not facing any terminal odds. This is utter rubbish, to put it succinctly. We are facing a temporary impasse related to dollar liquidity, and that’s about it. Even vis a vis debt, we do not have to be fatalistic. If we set our minds to producing our way out of this impasse — just an impasse it is — we will be flourishing in no time, because this has always been a country with a reasonably dynamic business ethic.
It’s just that all the best minds are either ignored, or are told that the policymakers from the think tanks would mend the disaster. No they wouldn’t. Our businessmen will, if they are sufficiently incentivised to innovate and create those value chains.