Sri Lanka Fund: A Patriot?s
Dream to Bypass Nonsense for National Development
Dilrook Kannangara
People are fast losing faith in governments to do development work
in Sri Lanka. Although all governments harp on their visionary plans
for development, nothing much happens. From roads to drains, canals
to tanks and schools to IT centres we have a long way to go to have
a decent state of infrastructure especially in rural areas where there
is the highest potential for growth. NGOs and INGOs are another source
of development. However, they have fallen prey to separatist, political
and some even to terrorist aspirations. World Vision – the largest
NGO by value of work it undertakes is primarily engaged in Evangelising
or otherwise Baptising the nation than developing it. The Opposition
on the other hand is hell bent on crippling all development work. Other
small political parties take no active and persistent interest in development
work.
What matters is not big plans
What matters to a community is specific development work that can add
economic value to business activities (and other growth/development
related activities) carried out by the members of that community. There
are many villages badly wanting bridges, roads and the like. They do
not want massive development work. All governments promising massive
development initiatives, conveniently ignores the work that matter.
Local government/Municipal councils/Provincial councils/development
councils, etc. are nothing but shooting the bull for most Lankans. Therefore,
ironically what matters is not big plans but small and relevant pieces
of work at village, provincial and regional level.
Inefficiency, corruption and waste (ICW)
Most public sector entities, their initiatives and projects are characterised
by these three. A classic example is the Mahaweli project that failed
to live up to the dream partly due to these three salient characteristics.
A recent example is the Upper Kothmale project which consumed millions
of rupees during 2002-04 but there was no project; nothing happened!!
Anyone visited Colombo in 1999 would remember the utter nonsense that
happened in Borella in the guise of road construction. Although the
road link and the underground passenger pass are good work, there was
ample room for better management of the project.
The amount of money wasted on ICW directly interprets to shoddy workmanship
and falling behind targets in terms of timeline, quality and deliverables.
Most projects in Sri Lanka are about this deficit.
How to bypass this in order to develop the nation?
Privately managed development work is the way forward. Assistance, participation
and engagement of public sector entities may be sought for such work,
but must be privately managed with transparent accounts, work certification,
bank accounts, money matters, quality checks and independent audit.
Although these add an additional financial burden, they are much less
than ICW wastage which has multiple evils. Big Four audit firms may
be used for independent financial audits of projects.
Groups of contractors, tradesmen and other necessities would be amassed
over time when projects complete successfully. They will be honest and
hardworking individuals as they are constantly subjected to scrutiny
and malpractices mean loss of business. This never happened with government
organised projects; in fact it was the opposite that happened!
Financing
The suggested mode of financing is by Sri Lankan communities abroad.
Each divisible community (Canadian, British, Australian, US, etc.) may
contribute to a Sri Lanka Fund (there are commercial funds by this name
and no reference is made to them here). Competitive fund raising initiatives
may be launched across these communities. It should be appreciated that
this is already happening in small scale. The basis of financing is
strictly on unqualified audit reports by reputed audit and engineering,
etc. firms.
The Challenge
The challenge, however, is to form a management committee in all these
countries and most importantly a working committee in Sri Lanka that
will overlook all the activities. Co-ordination between the groups is
essential and money matters should be extremely transparent. Unnecessary
expenditure that does not add value to projects must be eliminated.
These include foreign travel, ceremonies, etc. at the expense of the
Fund. Measurable outcomes must be shown to the financiers verified independently.
A good example
It was in world news last year how a doctor brought about enormous relief
to patients at the Castle Hospital in Borella by amassing little donations
and managing them well. Water filters, fans and other necessary comforts
were provided to mothers and newborn children of the nation. Had politicians,
their buddies or unrelated government servants entered the project,
it would have collapse in no time and it may also have been calamitous
on the doctor who initiated it as he may even be murdered or assaulted
by the conflicting parties!!
Therefore, this can be done in a large scale. However, most have doubts
about how their hard earned money will be spent as many similar endeavours
ended up in the pockets of the corrupt. The Tsunami carnival is a good
example.
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