Yet another Cabinet re-shuffle witnessed yesterday was a case of changing pillows to treat a headache and would only further aggravate the country’s economic problems, including the massive debt burden, the UNP said.

Ministers had been moved around like on a chess board, while some had been given “Impeachment Gratitude Portfolios” but the “King” had already been checkmated, UNP Media Spokesman Gayantha Karunathillake MP told a news conference in Colombo yesterday.

The “Mahinda Chintana Mantram” was simply not working due to basic flaws in policy. The answer certainly did not lie in shifting the same old faces around or appointing more project Ministers and Monitoring MPs.

The wrong foundation, which included huge financial borrowings at high commercial rates, had led to a heavy debt burden that would have to be borne by unborn generations as well, Karunathillake pointed.

Karunathillake said that neither investors nor the high spending tourists had come in their numbers contrary to claims by the authorities. Foreign companies were taking a major share of the pie out of the country, while a majority of the tourists could be categorised as low spenders living in cheap hotels and guest houses.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the last two Presidential Elections, had pledged to establish a garment factory in every village, but nothing of the sort had materialised. Foreign policy bungling had led to the GSP Plus facility being scrapped. If the President was serious about developing the apparel industry at the grassroots level, he would have to stop his his Ministers from utteiring undiplomatic and inflammatory statements against the West in general and the European Union in particular, MP Karunatillake said.

Karunathillake said that the ‘Miracle of Asia’ which the Rajapaksa regime pledged to usher in after the end of the war, was nowhere in sight. Instead, an unprecedented crime wave had gripped the country amidst total disregard for judicial orders. Young girls were being raped in broad light, judicial orders were disregarded with impunity, human rights and media freedom were under a renewed threat, while the Police and the Bribery Commission were at the mercy of the powers that be, resulting in those institutions being unable to perform their duties fairly, he added. (by Zacki Jabbar)

Source: The Island (Sri Lanka)