Ask any businessman in Sri Lanka if there
is a level playing field in which to do business? I don’t think you can find one
person who says there is! Then how on earth can you expect foreign investors to
invest in Sri Lanka.
You may ask there are foreign investors.
You could easily argue they are the ones who have paid bribes to get here or have
been given sweetners for those bribes and that is why they are here. NOT BECAUSE
OF A TRANSPARENT BUSINESS CLIMATE!
We all hoped that the Good Governance Govt.
would change the culture. It is impossible to do with the same jokers in power,
or at least with the same derelict mentality as those in the past.
If Thilak Karunaratne the Chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission is making a statement such as that in the link,
about Professional Bodies tolerating unethical business practices, what hope have
we got, that our professional bodies have any ethics.
Unfortunately, the rot is from the top. I
don’t know if the PM is aware that his most trusted lackeys and senior cabinet ministers
are behaving like things have NOT changed from the past. I know many allegations
are now coming on FB and even the regular media, which during the previous administration,
did not come to light then, however, now those persons on the receiving end don’t
even seem to be care about allegation, and instead continue to spill mud on their
opponents for the same dirty deed they are accused of themselves.
Worse, even Govt. people are attacking the
Governor of the Central Bank, without any basis of fact, like things like credit
card expenditure, without checking if he has paid from his personal account, or
from the Bank, and also checking what he is actually entitled to as Governor. For
a man who had a US$5M a year salary spending US$10,000 on a suit is NO BIG DEAL.
In fact he paid that from his personal card, with limits the President or PM of
Sri Lanka don’t have! It is best therefore that we look at who the real rogues are
before, calling innocents rogues, and rogues innocents the classic Sri Lankan way
of brushing off allegations.
It is also time the press
look at the big picture and not take it personally, and be more professional about
the way Public Money is misspent, as opposed to private money, which they appear
unable to distinguish.
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