{"id":116063,"date":"2021-07-13T16:44:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T23:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116063"},"modified":"2021-07-13T16:44:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T23:44:17","slug":"perfect-time-to-tame-import-mafia-and-take-control-of-national-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/13\/perfect-time-to-tame-import-mafia-and-take-control-of-national-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect Time to Tame Import Mafia and Take Control of National Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is\nin a foreign exchange crisis. It has short term and long-term reasons. In 1977\nwhen the economy was opened, it was done in a haphazard way. Due to those\ndeficiencies the nation faces many nasty consequences. A powerful, wealthy,\ncriminal and anti-national import mafia has been created. They import anything\nthey like from narcotics to bombs. It is time to wrest control of the imports\nindustry and fix the largest national security loophole in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Did We Get Here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After winning the\n1977 election on the promise of opening the economy, the government simply did\njust that. There was no planning, no phasing and certainly no national economic\npolicy underpinning the opening of the economy. Within years the government\nrealized it had opened floodgates and so many nasties crept into the country\nwhile it bled the foreign reserves dry. However, the import mafia is a very\npowerful, rich and influential group that dictated terms to the government. As\na result, no government was courageous enough to take them on. A vain attempt\nwas made by President Premadasa without much success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The import\nmafia falsify cost of consignments and avoid paying their due taxes, hide\nnarcotics and even bombs within falsely declared goods imported, falsify\ndocuments to import banned or restricted imports and engages in many other\nanti-national and criminal activities. It is not the Central Bank or the\nNational Economic Commission that determine the exchange rate policy and trade\ndeficit management. The import mafia decides all these! Sri Lanka\u2019s imports are\nroughly twice the value of exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Way Out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All import activities\nmust be carried out by a state corporation based on submissions from businesses\nand consumers. No one else must be authorized to import anything directly. This\nobviously excludes gifts and small imports made for consumption. Simply by\nintroducing such a mechanism would eliminate most illegal imports and\nunnecessary imports saving billions of dollars annually. It will put the state\nin a position to claim the correct amount of import taxes and monitor income\ntaxes and VAT as well. It will close a huge loophole in national security and\nthe national economy. At the very least, restrict the number of entities who\ncan import to entities and individuals the government can trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also\nallow the true protection of local industries that need protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will\nensure Sri Lanka honours trade agreements with other nations and take\nretaliatory action against nations that do not allow favourable access to Sri\nLankan exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment is leaving no stone unturned in looking for ways to get more foreign\nincome. However, a dollar saved is a dollar earned. Saving the wastage of forex\nis the easiest and most effective way to overcome the crisis in the short and\nlong run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition,\nit will weaken the anti-Sri Lanka political camps including the separatist\ncamp, the underworld and extremists which mostly rely on the import mafia for\nfunds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are existing\nagency contracts with local businessmen but these can be easily updated to\ninclude the government as genuine overseas suppliers are not bothered about\npersonalities. And there are always substitutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara Sri Lanka is in a foreign exchange crisis. It has short term and long-term reasons. In 1977 when the economy was opened, it was done in a haphazard way. Due to those deficiencies the nation faces many nasty consequences. A powerful, wealthy, criminal and anti-national import mafia has been created. They import anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116063","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=116063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}