Colombo running out of hope

Thousands of angry Sri Lankans surrounded President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s house this week in Colombo, vociferously demanding his resignation, with sustained cries of “Go, Gota, go.” But despite increasing public distress and anger, the President has refused to resign and has not offered yet any way out of the crisis.

Among those in the crowd was Sunil Senadheera, a 42-year-old carpenter from Moratuwa, a town famous for its woodworks. He has not been able to find work for over five weeks because of ongoing power outages.

“My current employer is a furniture maker. He laid me off along with four other workers because there’s no electricity for most of the day. He can’t afford to run a generator for long hours as the skyrocketing price of diesel makes it prohibitive.”

After the Sri Lankan rupee hit a historic low against the U.S. dollar and the Indian rupee, the little money with people can buy very little.

“Even if one can afford the price of diesel, one has to spend 2-4 days in long queues to get diesel,” said Senadheera. “My wife, who worked in a copy shop in the town, also lost her job because they couldn’t print documents because of the constant power outages. We are in dire straits as we have to take care of three children aged 13, 10 and 8. I pawned my wife’s gold jewelry to make ends meet. We are really scared because people say that this is only the beginning and we have to brace ourselves for more shocks in the coming weeks unless the leaders unite to resolve the crisis soon.”

The Sri Lankan on the street feels isolated, let down and is fast losing hope because there is no end in sight and there is little real awareness about the extent of their suffering and how long it would last.

Sobha Ranasinghe, a middle-aged mother of two young daughters in Mattegoda, 23 kms from Colombo Fort, runs a small eatery to support her family. Her eatery is patronisedmostly by bricklayers, carpenters, tuk-tuk drivers and street vendors.

“My customers are daily income earners who do a hard day’s work for a living. Generally speaking, they would spend money on food, tea and cigarettes without any stinginess. They would even eat and drink in a group and one of them would foot the bill for all. That practice is now history in just one month since the food prices have hit the ceiling and all sorts of shortages have hit their livelihoods,” she said.

“Now they don’t come in together for a chat over a meal. They come in individually and are frugal with their money, compared to just a month ago. We don’t hear any laughter and banter or teasing among them anymore,” she lamented.

“I employed a helper at my eatery. Now with the LP gas shortage, power outages and low demand for food items, I was compelled to tell her to stop coming to work until things get better. I want to see her working in my eatery again. I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” she said.

Bernard Silva, a tailor next to Sobha’s eatery, has a similar tale of woe. He now only gets to sew a blouse or two. “If not for that, I wouldn’t have been able to pay even the rent of my shop space. Hardly any gentleman comes to get a shirt or a pair of trousers sewn. There is no return on investment for the suit materials I have in stock,” he laments.

Chathurika Mendis, an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) trainer, also in the crowd, said, “Students preparing for the IELTS test in my institute has grown over the last 15 months. They want to score well and migrate to countries where they will find opportunities to fulfil their career aspirations. Many young people have lost hope on their motherland. They think the grass here can’t be watered in the foreseeable future.”

Sri Lanka is now unable to import essential fuel without the help of credit lines from bilateral partners, mainly India. Acute shortages of essential medicine have added insult to injury.

Running dangerously low on foreign reserves (with only usable reserves of USD 150 million) and facing the spectre of a ‘disorderly default’ on its debt obligations, much of the economic consequences of a sovereign default are already being seen.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka boasts qualified personnel with more than 30 doctoral and 50 Master’s degree holders in Economics, but none of them have been able to figure out a way to ease the unprecedented hardships faced by the country’s working class in the country’s worst economic crisis in history.

No-one in the finance ministry is apparently tasked with taking care of vulnerable families and individuals and deal with the shortages of cooking gas, fuel, electricity, milk powder and spiraling living costsparalysing people’s daily lives.

If not for the empathetic Indian credit line, for importing fuel and essential foods, the social explosion of the working class and the frustrated youth would have been beyond control of the security apparatus of the country.

The Ministry of Finance announced on Tuesday (April 12) that it would temporarily default on its foreign debts pending a programme of the IMF.

However, while negotiations continue on debt restructuring, broader changes in the governance structure such as strengthening independence of the judiciary, rule of law, national reconciliation with the Tamil and Muslim communities and the necessary checks and balances for each branch of government are even more important.

This would help restore confidence among friendly countries and boost Sri Lanka’s image as a mature democracy.

(The writer is a Colombo-based correspondent with ‘The Island’ newspaper)

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)