The Truth about the Jumbo
Cabinet
-Jumbo cabinet will cost the country an additional
650 million rupees
-But general elections will cost 35 billion
rupees
Dilrook Kannangara
The truth about the jumbo cabinet is that it cost the country an additional
650 million rupees a year. This additional budget was passed amid much
havoc in parliament. The ideological best that could have happened was
government MPs protecting the government’s majority without portfolios.
What; without portfolios? Our politicos would never cross the floor
for nothing. In fact not many in the developed democracies either. Therefore,
the JVP’s demand of a small cabinet as seen just before the 2001
undue election is nothing but impractical. The UNP-Mangala MoU states
that their cabinet will be at most 75 (one third of 225). This is three
times bigger than the JVP’s demand in 2001!
However, given the present political power balance in the parliament,
the jumbo cabinet is a necessary evil. The other practical scenario
is elections.
In the 2004 general election, UNP spent 4 billion rupees against 1 billion
by the UPFA. About another billion was spent by unlikely donors on behalf
of the JHU. TNA, SLMC and other minority parties would have spent another
billion rupees in total. The national election account (postage, administration,
etc.) was another billion rupees. Personal expenses for preference votes
is not included above and would have been at least another billion considering
some very ingenuus and expensive campaigns and the very large number
of candidates who contested. Damage to property would have been another
billion and damage to the environment at least another billion. Loss
of lives (81 lives were lost in the 2001 election pre and post though
it was less in the 2004 election), investigations, policing, election
monitoring, etc. should have costed another billion rupees in waste.
Election sweeteners cost a minimum two billion rupees for any government
(old and the new) based on published statistics. This comes to 14 billion
rupees based on 2004 data. When inflation is adjusted, it will be around
20 billion rupees in today’s terms.
Loss of two working days cost the economy at least 12 billion rupees.
(this may be calculated based on different methods, but the minimum
loss is approx 12 for 2 days). Excluding any other cost, this is in
total (with the 14 above) 26 billion rupees. Adjust for inflation, it
would be more than 35 billion rupees in today’s terms.
I thank those who guided me in the costing and I agree that it can be
further finetuned. However, the more you analyse it, the more it increases!
These numbers may be recalculated based on different bases; however,
all methods would return a more or less similar figure.
It doesn’t end here. One undue election follows another as we have
seen in the past. The average lifespan of a 21st century parliament
of Sri Lanka is just two and a half years. Therefore, if we are to have
an election now, there will definitely be another within 3 years. It
may be another general election or a presidential election, depending
on the circumstances. Adjusted for inflation, it would cost 47 billion
rupees in three years time.
We are talking about a staggering 82 billion rupees on undue elections
over 3 to 4 years! This is much more than the annual defence expenditure
and is about 25 times of the additional cost of the jumbo cabinet over
the same period! In other words, it is 3.2% of the GDP. This is equal
to an economic downturn of a huge 3.2% without factoring the enormous
political uncertainty.
This is the bottom-line. We can save 20 to 28 billion rupees a year
if we don’t have undue elections. Mind you, this does not include
the impact of political uncertainty and the constant degeneration of
it if we are to continue with this trend. The need of the century (we
had 3 parliamentary elections in the past 7 years – two of them
undue) is stable governments and timely elections.
If Ranil, Mangala or anyone else wants elections, this is the price
the country has to pay. They have gone blind for their enormous greed
for power. They simply don’t care. They will kill 81 people and
waste 82 billion rupees just to serve and save the country!! What a
joke?
Then there are their financiers; the separatists who would have made
a tenfold impact. For the past 24 years, they have caused our biggest
projects to fail costing the country trillions of rupees in loses. They
threaten to grab our oil reserves and the proposed new harbours that
have huge economic potential. On the other hand, the LTTE’s net
operating profit for a year exceeds our defence budget by many times!
As many have quite correctly pointed out, this conflict was about economics
and the terrorists have won it so far. There is only one way to save
our long term economy; that is by putting them out of business whatever
the short term economic hardships we may face. This got to be done someday
and the further we delay, the more expensive it becomes.
Peace in the proper sense means that all economic resources (whether
in the North, South, East, West or elsewhere) of this island are put
to the Sri Lankan economy. If the government (or any Sri Lankan) cannot
use the vast untapped resources of the North and the East at will, then
there is no peace and there is no economic growth as a result of such
“peace”.
It should be remembered that the government that took office after the
2001 undue election had to leave just 26 months later owing to economic
devastation. In a failed attempt, one big time Elamist tried to show
with bogus survey data that people valued “peace” than economic
concerns that they would overwhelmingly vote for the UNP. Alas! It was
UNP’s worst ever election loss with just 38%. It has since shrunk
to a poultry 20% in parliament thanks to aftershocks. The economic calamity
of the UNF was so huge that it all happened when the price of oil was
USD 26 a barrel (which has climbed about 3 times since). It would have
been Mardi Gras had the UNF stayed in power after the crude oil prices
shot-up.
The only way to develop the economy is by having only timely and due
elections, putting the terrorists out of business, economic development
of the North and the East and a proper economic plan for safeguarding
the economy and catalysing economic growth. No one in the N-E will thereafter
support any Elamist or other separatist movement.
However, it is futile to expect Ranil or Mangala to care about the economy;
they are only after illusive power and they will never get it until
at least 51% of the population is castrated of their free will.
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