By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.

Since the days of President Jayawardena we have got used to look for foreign goods and  following the IMF model of allowing imports without any control, spending our foreign exchange for luxury purposes even when we did not have sufficient funds, we have become an indebted country. The IMF advice was intended to make us subservient and make us a colony once again where our countries had to obtain all goods from developed countries; our countries can only continue to produce and sell the raw material. The IMF Model also imposed a high interest policy where our entrepreneurs had to get loans at high interest as much as 24% while in Developed Countries entrepreneurs can get loans at 2 to 4 %. That caused the closure of our industries. This caused unemployment and poverty.

The youth of our country have had to migrate to work in developed and rich countries performing menial and third grade jobs and send a few dollars to their loved ones. Today we have many Departments that encourage sending our youth abroad and The Governments keep counting the money they send, thinking of it as a great achievement. Sadly we have forgotten how to build up our industries, train and find employment for our youth in a respectable manner……