Dilrook Kannangara

The answer is a loud no.

There is absolutely no earthly reason why Uva and North Central Provinces (for instance) should remain poor; two of the poorest provinces. But it highlights a stubborn economic reality of Sri Lanka and why it can never succeed in the economic front.

Just imagine for a second that these two provinces were two independent nations. Both provinces earn huge amounts of foreign currency through tourism thanks to ancient Sinhala kings and Mother Nature. Ella, Kataragama (shrine built by king Dutugemunu), Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, etc. are tourism hotspots. Both foreign and local tourists flock to these places every day.

In addition, they have significant agricultural output once again thanks to the constructions of ancient Sinhala kings and the Mahaweli project. In fact, both these provinces as nations can easily become self-sufficient in food. They can produce dozens of billionaires too.

Further, everyday tens of thousands of vehicles cross these two provinces to get to other provinces. If they were nations, such thoroughfare would be charged. That could earn anywhere upward of a billion dollars each annually.

If these two provinces were two independent nations, they could be earning enormous amounts of money that could have propelled them to some of the richest nations in the south and south east Asian region. Of course, it comes at the expense of others and that is how nations develop.

But what happens today? They do not get back the massive amounts of foreign currency they earn. Instead, this is used up to pay for imports by some others who import more than they earn in foreign currency. Agricultural produce is bought at cheap prices mostly by businesses from elsewhere or drowned out by cheap imports from India, etc. by the Pettah Mafia. Daily traffic that runs through these provinces only leave pollution, smoke, dust, congestion, road deaths and other undesirable outcomes behind for the people in these provinces.

Foreign currency earnings are wasted to import matter that is useless for most islanders because two (other) provinces do not have meaningful exports or other foreign earnings compared with their imports (post-war). Tax collected from Uva and NCP provinces for instance are used to support provinces that do not pay their due share of tax but exploit education, healthcare, etc. expenditure. The inequation is far worse when it comes sacrifices by soldiers from these provinces. Those who benefit most from the war victory are people who did not make any sacrifices as members of the security forces.

The provincial system, power sharing/devolution/decentralization or other alien mechanisms make matters worse. They still take out the funds earned or could have been earned by Uva and NCP provinces and give it to economically worthless provinces.

There are two other provinces where almost all their tertiary educated people (at the expense of the nation and other provinces) are within the brain drain lot which costs the nation billions of dollars each year. They also import everything from their very own songs and religious matter at the expense of the nation’s meagre foreign reserves.

This is a disastrous economic and social equation! It does not work and it is absolutely unfair.

Surely, the solution is not to create independent nations out of Uva and North Central Provinces but to meaningfully restructure the nation to stop cross-subsidization and economic and defense parasitism. Some successful countries achieved development by shedding economically useless or relatively less useful regions. Examples include Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, post-WW2 Japan, India, Brunei, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. Plenty more examples from Europe. Sadly, Sri Lankans lack the courage to make firm decisions to take what is rightfully theirs and uphold value for money. Until that happens, nothing can develop Sri Lanka.