Sugath Kulatunga There is a raging controversy on the proposal to privatise SLT. The Sectoral Committee in Parliament has said that it will be a threat to national security. The Sectoral Committee on Finance has stepped in to declare that it is not. There are comments supporting the privatization proposal from some professionals. It seems […]

Sugath Kulatunga On a private members motion in the Parliament last Wednesday there was a debate on the damage done to the agricultural crops done by monkeys (Toque macaque}. There was unanimity across the party divide that crop damage by monkeys has increased very rapidly and now is in a crisis proportion. It was mentioned […]

Sugath Kulatunga Today is Poson Poya, the day that Arhath Mahinda introduced the Buddhist Dharma to Lanka. It is the day that the seeds of Sinhala Budhist civilization was planted in this country. Every act of Arhath Mahinda had a specific significance. He ensured that the ruler of the county was intelligent. He tested him […]

Sugath Kulatunga Hon Minister, This note is to bring to your notice an illegal circular issued by a former Secretary Defense restricting the issue of gun licenses to persons over 60 years of age. This is one of the reasons of the increase of crop loss due to animal damage which is estimated as 40 […]

Sugath Kulatunga Government plans to spend Rs 3.26 billion for a safety net called Aswesuma for 1.7 billion poor people. It is also a proposal by the IMF which is wearing the mask of pro poor to introduce harsh neo liberal policies. (it is noted the term Aswesuma- could stand for ඇස් වැසුම/As bandung -closing […]

Sugath Kulatunga This is a continuation of the article titled Export and Prosper published on LBN on the website https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2023/02/28/industrialize-and-prosper-part-i/ Historically SL had been an entrepot trade center. It can be assumed that there were also industrial goods produced locally in this trade. There is evidence that steelmaking was prevalent in many parts of the […]

Sugath Kulatunga The details of the conditionalities of the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) are now accessible on the IMF website Web: http://www.imf.org. A few comments from a layman’s point of view are as follows. Reference to IMF program covers government ownership as well. The objective of the IMF intervention aims to restore macroeconomic stability […]

Sugath Kulatunga Delivering the keynote address at the ‘Economic Dialogue – IMF & Beyond’ President  referred to Sri Lanka’s missed opportunities for development, and mentioned the failure to implement D.S. Senanayake’s proposals and the Shenoy Report of 1965. He added that the country’s progress was hindered by the ethnic issue that turned into armed conflict […]

Sugath Kulatunga In a recent media article with the title’ Govt’s amazing death wish for nuclear plant on Lankan soil’ was typical of selective reporting. It would have been fair by the reading public if the scales of the Chernobyl plant and the proposed Sri Lanka plant were indicated. Chernobyl was of 720 MW capacity. […]

Sugath Kulatunga The Constitution of the country provides for the appointment of a Secretary for each Ministry,who is empowered to exercise supervision over the departments of Government or other institutions in the charge of his Minister.vide the following Articles of the Constitution. 52. (1) There shall be for each Ministry a Secretary who shall be […]

Sugath Kulatunga In June, 2016 (IMF) approved a 36-month extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with Sri Lanka for an amount equivalent to US$1.5 billion, The program aimed to provide a policy anchor for macroeconomic stability and structural reforms, while strengthening external resiliency in a challenging global environment” To achieve these objectives, the […]

Sugath Kulatunga It is good to hear that the courts have recognized the right of information on the names of members of Parliament who have declared their assets. Some time back before the Right of Information law was introduced, the civil society organization CIMOGG made a similar request to the then Speaker who did not […]

Sugath Kulatunga The rapid development of South Korea from a backward nation whose per capita income was less than that of Ceylon in 1960 to a modern developed nation with a per capita income of US$ 42500 is considered an economic miracle. Do we have any lessons of experience to learn from that sensational achievement […]

 Sugath Kulatunga The obnoxious 13th Amendment to the Constitution has surfaced again with the announcement by the President that 13A should be fully implemented, which also implies the remerger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. His argument is that the provisions on police and land powers have been in the Constitution for the last 37 […]

Sugath Kulatunga India is using the carrot and the stick formula to insist on the pound of flesh of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution. Big brother turned good samaritan has again raised their persistent demand for the full Implementation of the 13th Amendment. It is noted that India does not now invoke […]

Sugath Kulatunga The year of the Rabbit has brought Sri Lanka the good news of the two-year moratorium proposed by China on debt repayment. This should be acceptable to all creditors and Sri Lanka. We cannot expect haircuts or of debt cancelation in the present global economic downturn. If SL can achieve the levels of […]

Sugath Kulatunga The worst form of tanha is bala thanha the craving for power. Today the deafening baying of the opposition in the name of democracy is nothing but the craving for power. The government is equally strident for the retention of power. This dogfight for power has disregarded the present plight of the nation […]

Ruchir Sharma Ruchir Sharma is an investor, author, fund manager and columnist for the Financial Times. He is the Chairman of Rockefeller International, and was an emerging markets investor at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He is considered one of the best 10 global thinkers of the day. His recent book The 10 Rules of Successful […]

Sugath Kulatunga Sri Lanka is not a poor country but a poorly managed country. According to the list by Credit Suisse published in 2022 pertaining to Total Wealth of Countries and reported by Wikipedia the value of total assets of Sri Laka was 400 Billion US dollars and the country is placed 57 out of […]

Sugath Kulatunga Minister Kanchana Wijesekera insists on a CEB tariff hike in January of about 60% to 65%. Already there has been a steep increase of the electricity tariff and the proposed increase above the present increase will heap more burdens on the consumer who is finding it difficult to make ends meet. One cannot […]

Sugath Kulatunga A witty decoding of the acronym NATO is ‘’no action talk only’. In our country there is not even talk on some critical and palpable issues which are writ large. A few weeks back a think tank of the Peradeniya University pointed out that with an expected annualised export income of $ 16.3 […]

Sugath Kulatunga The Sinhalese nation has made a series of political and strategic lapses which have influenced the fate of this nation throughout history. This note is to roughly indicate them, and hope historians fill up the details. For strategic reasons valid at the time, all our capitals other than Kotte, were located away from […]

Sugath Kulatunga Bribery is one of the most vicious, repulsive and destructive features of our society. It is a subject which should receive the attention of all citizens in the country. It should be not only investigated but researched to identify its roots which might help in confronting it. It is a challenge for social […]

Sugath Kulatunga A few days back the President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that new laws are expected to be introduced in the future to ensure food security. The President also emphasized the need to obtain accurate data in establishing food security and the nutritional status of the people and stressed that there have been disparities in […]

Sugath Kulatunga A few days back Derana TV in their Rebuild Lanka program had a very interesting episode on investment promotion. It was very positive. The contrast presented between the Singapore procedure and that of Sri Lanka was revealing. That discussion made me give some thought to the subject. In the beginning, the GCEC made […]

Sugath Kulatunga 1.     Bring narcoterrorism under Terrorism Act. Colonial powers have used drugs and alcohol to weaken cultures and economies of countries throughout history. The use of opium to weaken China was a good example. In a more subtle way Arrack was used by the British to attack the culture of Buddhism in Ceylon. It […]

Sugath Kulatunga Now, ex-Finance Minister BR has also threatened to bring in new regulations against exporters who default on repatriation of the full amount of export proceeds. Here again, the proposal is confined to exports only and confined to getting back the full amount of the export value as declared. It is not about trade […]

Sugath Kulatunga In early 1980 the GCEC was getting many visitors to learn about the experience of the new investment promotion zone. One of those visitors was a Chinese official who at that time was vice-chairman and concurrently secretary-general of the State Administration Commission on Import and Export Affairs and the State Administration Commission on […]

Sugath Kulatunga This is a season for scapegoating. Aragalaya blames Gota for all the ills in the economy and called for his resignation and demanded that both Gota and MR must go. Later they added Ranil to the list of expulsions. Maithree swears that only an all-party govt can find a solution. Minister Wijedasa thinks […]

Sugath Kulatunga There is plenty of discourse on updating and modernizing our bullock cart age systems of administration. The laws of the land are one area that has received attention recently and the previous Minister of Justice did revise a few of the antique provisions in some of the statutes. Unfortunately, the law governing the […]