Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister Karu Jayasuriya and Ms Sagarica Delgoda, Country Representative of Friedrich Naumann Stiftung at the Key Person’s Forum.

It is shameful for this country not to have achieved the desired progress and development targets even after 60 years of independence. The retardation could be attributed to petty politics that has been virulent and prevalent in Sri Lanka, said Karu Jayasuriya, Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs, at the Key Person’s Forum conducted by the Small and Medium Enterprise Developers (SMED), a project of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) and Friedrich Naumann Stifftung (FNSt).

The Forum was held at Trans Asia Hotel and Jayasuriya spoke on "Making Public –Private Partnership Meaningful Strategy of the Government".

He said that he has long been associated with the private sector and while appreciating the role played by that sector, he conceded it was corrupt.

Speaking of his ministry, he said he had been able to infuse efficiency which could be taken as a role model for others in the public sector. 

He said that looking at the pre- and post-independence period of this country, the public sector was disciplined and moral, and at that time Sri Lanka’s public sector was one of the best in Asia. 

When the British left this country, they left behind a legacy of good highway network and a railway system. Of course, talking about private sector at that time, it served mainly British colonial interests. The private sector at that time was very active, in fact, proactive, but the indigenous private sector simply cruised along.  

He said that with the advent of independence, the National Chamber of Commerce was established to look after the indigenous business and to compete with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Successive governments spoke of the private sector and considered it as the engine of growth.   He said that the private sector was truly the driving force of economic development. That was in the immediate post-war years. But despite corruption in the private sector, it nevertheless, by and large, has been playing a meaningful role in the economy of the country. 

But he said that after 60 years of independence the country has not achieved so much other than what was left by the British as there was no well demarcated development plans and strategies and road maps. Infrastructure development was given a backseat. There was no direction or master plans for specific and overall economic development. It was a sad situation.For that, we should be ashame of ourselves, he said.

We have to make dynamic changes now if our economy was to prosper, said the minister. He referred to the high cost of electricity. A coal power plant was planned in 1992. It was only recently that the government was able to get the coal power project going. He said that another reason for the retardation of development was not utilizing the full potential of the private sector. He said the great potential of the private sector had not been fully tapped.

He said the private sector in Sri Lanka was dynamic and had been growing despite a lot of difficulties. He said that in some areas like providing services and garments, the private sector has done extremely well. They were operating very successfully and are even expanding to the other parts of the globe. He said that though some of these private sector businesses were not known here, international business people speak of Sri Lanka’s private sector with admiration.

On the other hand, he said, comparatively speaking, the post- independence public sector has declined with indiscipline and inefficiency which are attributable to the politicization of the whole administrative system. 

He said that somewhere in the Nineties and early 2000, all parties together moved the 17th Amendment and were able to agree on some form of reforms, such as the setting up of the Constitutional Council which was non-political, non-racial and non-religious. It functioned smoothly, until its first term was over. But then due to petty politics a new Constitutional Council failed to emerge. 

He said there was an urgent need for electoral reforms. He said that the current electoral system costs much money and had other implications.