Development Of The Nation: Where Do We Go From Plans To Blue Print & Beyond

By Ratnam Nadarajah –May 4, 2016

Ratnam Nadarajah

Since the beginning of the year there has been proposals, conferences, seminars on the development of the country. There was the well-publicised event at the Grand Cinnamon in January 2016. A Harvard led event and funded, I believe by George Soros, where 300 hundred participants including the PM and senior members of the cabinet and business leaders participated. This was immediately followed by two teams going to Harvard, one from the Prime Minister’s Office another from the Ministry of Finance. One lot was paid by Harvard and other paid by the government. I do not want to go into the politics of the decision of why two teams, where one would have been adequate. Also there was the conference in Singapore with similar themes. Then there are the much talked about plans for Colombo port city development, Western Province Mega polis development plan, a thousand-acre industrial development project to be established by Chinese companies in Hambantota, Plantation sector development Scheme to mention a few under purview of the government.

Development strategies cannot be evolved over a conference or seminars. Granted that fresh ideas, a systematic approach, know how, lessons learnt may provide a basis for the development process.

What is the ultimate goal of these development? Is it to provide employment, increase export earnings or merely to be a showcase, as has been the case with the mega projects of the recent past. Not a day passes without the head line news of the billions being lost by these entities. This would not just disappear overnight. These are our permanent white elephants which will haunt the nation for a long time.

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