THE BIG PICTURE
Imagine. An investor who is enamoured by the natural beauty and immense potential of our ‘island like no other’ invested his time and money to board a flight to Sri Lanka with an eye on putting his money where his heart is…
His flight from the city state of Singapore to our island’s main international airport in Katunayake comes with the frills of amiable hospitality aboard a perennially beleaguered national career. And his peek into the palm fringed surrounds of the airport – from the window of his first class seat – is as luring as he’s seen in other parts of the world…
IMAGINE INVESTING IN SRI LANKA!
Soon however, his love affair with the Ceylon of old is to come to an abrupt end.
First, he and his fellow passengers – including many state administrators returning from a taxpayer funded visit to the Lion City, ostensibly to meet fellow officials and learn how a nation that looked up to Sri Lanka back in its heyday can up the ante – are asked to climb down a shaky mobile stairway and onto the tarmac, and then a coach that seems to have been doing the rounds for years.
The coach takes off at high speed as if it is on the racing track in Katukurunda; and the journey is so long that the would-be investor wonders whether he and his fellow passengers are being transported to Colombo!
What was to follow makes him wonder whether a direct transfer, even on a recklessly driven coach, would have been a better bet.
While the bigwig administrators are rushed to a VIP lounge to complete their immigration procedures with little or no hassle, the big time investor finds himself standing in front of an immigration officer who is busy on a phone call – for more than a few seconds.
Having completed his long wait at a counter that seems like it was made so that time stands still, he proceeds to the luggage belt where congestion and disorder are the order of the day – and that was ahead of being touted by hordes of salespeople from a duty-free concourse that looks more like a bazaar than an enticing gateway made for shopaholics.
And while he is told by an onlooker that the sorry state of Sri Lanka’s premier international airport is ‘temporary,’ pending a major overhaul that’s been on the cards for yonks, he wonders why the exterior – including the designated areas for picking up arriving passengers – resembles a messy pick up zone rather than an orderly thoroughfare that reflects the potential of an island that he’s ready to invest in.
Ah there’s an expressway ahead…! A sudden and welcome reminder that he may be on his way to a modern and developed commercial capital, except that the lights are switched off for some reason!
In Colombo, his meetings and visits to potential investment sites prove to be as arduous as his journey from the airport, thanks to a lack of interest in dealing with an investor who prides himself on being squeaky clean and the red tape that continues to dissuade would-be investors of repute.
So let’s imagine what this gentleman would say about investing in Sri Lanka: ‘My foot!’
The father of what is now a revered First World nation, Lee Kuan Yew’s (a.k.a. LKY) first visit to Ceylon in April 1956 warranted more than a mere mention in his famed memoir From Third World To First – such was how impressed LKY was by what he witnessed, describing Colombo as a better city than Singapore at the time!
How times have changed!
This is the sad tale of a nation that has been run to the ground by politicians and their appointed administrators of all colours, be it because of rampant corruption or extreme mismanagement – or both!
– Editor-in-Chief
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