{"id":112640,"date":"2021-03-14T17:33:10","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T00:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112640"},"modified":"2021-03-14T17:33:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T00:33:10","slug":"half-a-million-jobs-lost-motor-trade-is-there-a-way-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/14\/half-a-million-jobs-lost-motor-trade-is-there-a-way-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Half a Million Jobs Lost?-Motor Trade. Is there a way out?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

500,000\njobs lost-Local Vehicle Industry(The Island 13\/3\/21)  sends my mind to many instances in my\nexperience that offer an immediate solution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near my home on Old Kesbewa\nRoad  Gangodawila Nugegoda there is  a man making oil filters. He  has been making those since the Sixties  and selling them some where. In the UK  and US where I have happened to have lived\nfor years there are local makers of oil filters. It is very rare for a\nmanufacturer\u2019s oil filter to be obtained from as far as  France for a Peugeot or Germany for a BMW.\nInstead there are local oil filters, silencers, \nradiators and many other car parts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once long ago in\nBangladesh  in 1983 I decided on a motor\ntrip from Dhaka to Khatmandu in Nepal. It was a four thousand mile trip in an\nold Toyota Publica and the travelers were my wife and two of my sons. It was a\nforbidding trip and many told me not to. \nWe set off and in two hundred miles at Jessore there was a big bang. I\ngot out to find my silencer torn to bits. I was near Jessore where I stayed at\nthe Circuit Bungalow. The next morning I \nwent to a local garage and waited till they opened the doors.  The owner entrusted the task to a welder. The\ncar was jacked up. Out came the silencer in pieces. The welder made a note of\nthe pieces and took measurements. He brought a sheet of metal and I saw him carefully\nmeasuring and cutting it to pieces. He commenced welding and in less than two\nhours emerged a silencer in looks very close to what was taken out. It was\nfixed in minutes and in two hours I was on the road with a bang. The beat of\nthe engine was perfect and it was sound even for my full 4000 mile trip and\nalso for another two years use till I sold my car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in Colombo in 1997 when\nthe silencer of my Peugeot 307 packed in it was Pathma Silencers that made a\nsilencer .It took eight hours of stay at the garage and it was not a patch on\nthe two hours work at Jessore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My next instance travels back\nto when I was a Deputy Director of Small Industry. Kariyawasam the Member of\nParliament for Elpitiya saw me with a strapper lad who brought a number of side\nmirrors of cars that he had made and wanted an \nallocation of foreign exchange  to\nimport mirrors. The side mirrors were of the correct shape and looked good. I\nsent an inspector to see his factory and report. In a few days time the\ninspector reported that it was a sham- the youth had no work place and could\nonly produce a bag of tools. It was a firm rejection.. I phoned Kariawasam and\ngave him a piece of my mind for pulling my leg. No, that youth is not a sham,\nhe is a good worker, he was adamant.. I told him to inform the youth that I\nwill be at Elpitiya the next morning. He informed the youth. I was told to meet\nhim at the Cooperative Society garage. I was there in time and the youth came\nin with a large heavy  bag full of tools\nand metal rods. I asked him where he made the side mirrors. He pointed out the\ngarage where lorries were to be parked. He said he has to wait till a lorry\ncomes in to obtain the lorry jack. I understood why my inspector rejected him.\nThe youth did not have a semblance of a \nfactory. The manner the youth spoke was very convincing. He showed me\nhis tools and he had many of different types and he showed me rods with bolts\nat each end  and he implored me to wait.\nWe waited. In came a lorry and he borrowed the jack. He sat in a corner and\nwithin minutes  assembled the rods to\nmake a jig. He placed the jack at the bottom, put in cut pieces of metal- cut\nby him in my presence and got them turned into various shapes. I carefully\nlooked at it and some were close \u2013exact replicas that matched the side mirrors\nof different makes of cars. I gave him a foreign exchange allocation on the\nspot. I thanked Kariyawasam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What these three instances\ntell me is that our salesmen and our motor car sales people should embark on\nmaking all parts of cars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to actively get going\nwith industries to make motor spares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of import licences for\nimporting car spares, the import allocations should be to import metal sheets\nand welding equipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wont take long for our\nwelders to make car spares.  I have seen\nmany of them  at work in my eighteen\nyears’ ramblings all over the island.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is a big but.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri Lanka- the Governments\nhave been hard on the private sector. Once the Government took away all estates\nover 50 acres and this ruined our plantation agriculture. One of my uncles died\nbecause of this take over that deprived his life\u2019s savings- an estate of some\n400 acres at Hayes- a loss he could not bear.. The rent laws that restrict\nrents and also forbid owners to get their rented properties back  forbid building homes. Naturally the rich get\nused to find avenues overseas to use their wealth.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is simple- waiting\nfor the Private Sector to take charge is wishful thinking. The FDI-Foreign\nDirect Investment which the IMF holds for us to follow  and which \nMinister Cabral, our one and only economic specialist even now believes\nwill happen is never going to be a reality.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government has to act  fast like in the NM-Sirimavo days when they\ncreated a seperate Ministry under the Prime Minister herself and head hunted\nthe most eminent economist in the island Professor HAdeS Gunasekera and\nestablished a new programme to bring about employment to the youth. That was\nthe DDCP- the Divisional Development \nCouncils Programme.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In Kotmale the Divisional Secretary  created a Paper Making Industry with waste\npaper collected from the Nuwara Eliya katcheri within months- the equal of\nwhich we have yet failed to establish. Since the Eighties the President\nJayawardena industry was to collect waste paper and export to India \u2013some\n30,000 tons a month to earn a few coppers and to import paper paying for it in\ndollars.  We have yet failed to  understand the \u2018economics\u2019 of selling waste\npaper and buying paper. We are perhaps the only country that does not use waste\npaper to make paper. Find a consultant to get that done \u2013 give a call to the\nMinistry of Youth in Bangladesh and ask them to send one of my youths who\ncollect wastepaper and make paper. There are a few of them.  We need to have our heads examined.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in Matara as the\nGovernment Agent when the Ministry of Plan Implementation was very happy with\nthe Boat yard I established within 3 months and refused to approve any more\nindustries , I took charge and did three months of experiments every night,\nlocked up  at the Rahula College science\nlab  and unearthed the art of making\ncrayons. The king pin scientist was my Planning Officer a chemistry grad from\nColombo, helped by the science teachers. Then Sumanapala Dahanayake the Member\nof Parliament for Deniyaya in his capacity as the President of the Morawak\nKorale Coop Union took charge of establishing the factory- he did it working\nday and night in three weeks. In the third week when we had filled two large\nrooms of crayons,  Sumanapala and I took\noff to meet our Minister of  Industries\nMr Subasinghe and he was surprised at the quality and he opened sales in the\nfourth week and Sumanapala developed the industry to have island wide sales.\nWhen we were refused a small allocation of forex to import dyes, by the\nMinistry of Industries we were lost. We then found that the Ministry of Imports\nwas about to import crayons and we moved to Harry Guneratne the Controller of\nImports. It did not take long to convince him that by giving us a small\nallocation of forex to import dyes from the funds earmarked for imports of   crayons, \nhe can make large saving in forex. This had never been done earlier.\nMinister Illangaratne was quick to approve it and  ordered the stoppage of all imports of\ncrayons.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can all this be done within\nthe three more years of our President.\nThe answer is Yes. It is a firm Yes. It can be done. I can speak with authority\nbecause I created the Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh within\neighteen months and trained the youth officers to carry it on and  thus was born the largest and most successful\nemployment creation programme the world has known- a programme that has guided\nover three million to be self employed. \nwithin three decades.  The ILO had\nfailed in a similar task at Tangail, Bangladesh which increased my stature in\nBangladesh.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I commenced the Youth Self\nEmployment Programme in Bangladesh in April 1982. We did work fast. My  Youth Workers and Deputy Directors of Youth\ntrained by me in economics and methods of guiding youths,  were training guiding some two thousand\nyouths on a day to day basis goading and building up the abilities of youths,\nthe drop out of the education system to establish  enterprises and in some eighteen months the\nyouths built up farms and ventures of their own. Some even came to enter the\ntaxing bracket. Of the  479 youths who\ncommenced their enterprises in the first few months,  55 earned a net income over 1000Tk a month\nand 144 earned over 500 Tk a month, all achieved within  eighteen months. At that time Tk 500 was the\nincome of a clerical officer in the public service. We were training 2000\nyouths and now(2021) we train 160,000 a year. By now(2021) this Programme has\nguided over 3 million youths to be self employed. It is easily the largest and\nmost successful employment creation programme ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met the Hon Minister for\nLabour and Manpower, Hon Aminul Islam, the third in command of the military\njunta only twice- the first was the day I had a two hours argument where I had\nto prove that I could establish the self employment programme in the face of the\ndismal failure of the ILO attempt to create such a programme,  when he approved my establishing the\nprogramme and on the last day I worked in Bangladesh, when I requested him to\nmake an order that the youths on my programme who had earnings sufficient to be\ntaxed   should be given a reprieve not to\nbe taxed for a few years. He kindly agreed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have stopped all non food\nimports. Now through devious methods importers have cashed in. In Cargills I\nhave seen for sale  Lorenz Natural Salted\nPotatoe Chips all the way from Germany mind you a packet of 500grams at Rs 520.\nWe can easily make potatoes chips and banana chips at less than half that\nprice.. This industry can easily be set up \nin a week and we can look forward to three industries making potatoe\ncrisps at Boralanda and two banana crisp factories at Rambukkana and\nGodakawela. My Divisional Secretary at Rambukkana Sarath Indatissa would have\nestablished a banana crisp factory in \ntwo to three days. He would work for 48 hours non stop,  He was that smart and very fast. In those\nPremier Dudley days we were not authorized to establish new industries. That\nwas also how we established the Crayon Factory at Morawaka when all of us broke\nrest for three weeks- a 24 hour a day operation. Mind you Sumanapala Dahanayake\ndeveloped it to have islandwide sales. It was President Jayawardena that\nordered the stoppage of all three industries; Paper, Boat Making and Crayon\nMaking to please the IMF  in 1978.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was not all.  Deputy Commissioner NT Ariyaratne.disclosed\nto me that President Jayawardena instructed him to proceed to Morawaka and\ninspect the Crayon Cooperative Factory and \nto find something to hang Sumanapala Dahanayake.. Ariyaratne after three\ndays of investigation, including – a forensic audit  had to report that the Cooperative Crayon\nFactory was in good health and its finances were in proper order. That was the\nFCID of the Jayawardena  days in action.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I also came across in\nCargills,  Soyafresh Soya Milk- a litre\npack made in Malaysia, sold at Rs. 660. . Kotmale or Ambewela could have easily\ndone this without incurring any foreign exchange, at half this cost..   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our importers have hoodwinked\nour Government.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to get back to the pre 1977 days when all imports have to\nbe vetted and approved only if we cannot make it. I was one of the sleuths that\ncontrolled small industry and unless this is done we will continue to waste our\nhard earned foreign exchange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to open up two major industries a Metal Hardware Industry\nand a Woodwork Industry, which will make anything in metal or wood, liaise with\nthe Private Sector and make everything that the Private Sector does not make.\nIf there is anything that Sri Lanka cannot make, which the country requires  these two organizations will make or if they\ncannot make recommend an import. allocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 These details are provided to prove that we\ncan work fast and we have the ability to tackle the problems of unemployment\nand poverty if only our President will give the green light for import substitution\ntype of industry to be commenced and set up the infrastructure to guide small\nindustry.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is nothing new. Once in\n1970-1977 we did establish industries and created employment. The SUCCESS\nachieved in  Paper Making at Kotmale and\nthe Boat Building and Crayon Making in Matara prove to the hilt that it will be\na success. There are no FDIs- Foreignb Direct Investors  coming to help us. Creating employment and\npoverty alleviation  is a task that can\nbe done by us. It is far easier to achieve this than defeating the Monster\nLTTE. I look forward to the days when the Gotabhaya-Mahinda juggernaut will\nactually get going in Sri Lanka. To my thinking that day is not far away. Let\nme live in hope.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph D.\nMichigan State University <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former SLAS, G.A. Matara <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author of  How the IMF Ruined Sri\nLanka & Alternative Programmes of Success, Godages, 2006 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the IMF Sabotaged Third\nWorld Development, Kindle\/Godages, 2017 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

16\/3\/2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0 500,000 jobs lost-Local Vehicle Industry(The Island 13\/3\/21)  sends my mind to many instances in my experience that offer an immediate solution.   Near my home on Old Kesbewa Road  Gangodawila Nugegoda there is  a man making oil filters. He  has been making those since the Sixties  and selling them some where. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}