IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID “During my almost two-year stint at the helm of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, I have come to realise even more that neither our society nor our political system are willing to make sacrifices to make this (to take Sri Lanka from developing country status to a developed nation) happen and that there’s no willingness to stick with a long-term economic policy,” the former Governor of the Central Bank Deshamanya Prof. W. D. Lakshman reportedly lamented at a media briefing on 10 September. The press meet was to announce his sudden resignation – some seven weeks ahead of when he was due to relinquish his duties – from the nation’s highest monetary authority four days later. While Lakshman was referring to the behind-the-scenes role he played in preparing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s economic policy manifesto (titled ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’), the reality is that it has been decades since Sri Lanka benefitted from economic policy stability – because policies are overturned with every change of government and worse still, they have rarely been implemented as planned or promised. His reference to “our society” is worth noting too; because let’s face it, it’s the people who elect our politicians – and it is they who accept the inevitability of broken promises along the way. That a new people culture, let alone a political transformation, is the need of the hour is a given.