President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his team spent the last week racing to finalise the budget in time for yesterday’s speech. Most other business was put aside. He did, however, manage to slip away on Wednesday for the opening of Sriyani Dress Point, a clothing store. Heading back to the Presidential Secretariat after, he settled into a marathon session with Harshana Suriyapperuma, the Treasury secretary, and focussed on putting final touches on relief measures and resolving procurement bottlenecks.
The government’s goal is to spend every single rupee of next year’s two trillion-rupee capital expenditure budget. If it succeeds, it would be an event for the record books. Sri Lanka has consistently struggled to spend the money it allocates for public investment like infrastructure — a key reason for lacklustre growth.
In his budget speech, the president outlined the government’s plan to make it happen: streamline procurement guidelines and start procurement early. If the government succeeds, Sri Lanka’s capital expenditure, as a share of GDP, should reach the levels of Vietnam or India.
After the budget, AKD shook a few hands and patted a few backs at the post-budget tea party. The representatives of the people, and the representatives of capital, including Dudley Sirisena, were both there. But AKD didn’t dilly-dally, scurrying away after 15 minutes.
Hacking the Gordian Knot
Staffing changes appear to be part of the strategy to speed up delivery. Roshan Gamage, a civil servant, was recently appointed as the Digital Economy Ministry’s new secretary. He already knows his new minister well — the president is also the digital economy minister.
Gamage was secretary to the President’s Fund and an additional secretary at the Presidential Secretariat, “overseeing the digital ministry for the president”. He’s been keeping a close watch on the digitisation efforts, regularly appearing at ministry briefings on digitisation and launches like GovPay. His predecessor, Waruna Sri Dhanapala, was packed-off to the backwater that is the Sports Ministry.
Unredacted learns that work has been slow due to clashes between ministry officials and the former secretary. The industry was taken aback by the change — their relationship with Dhanapala was broadly positive. A senior ministry official said he hopes Gamage, who belongs to the same administrative service batch as several additional secretaries, will have better luck.
Despite these troubles, the Digital Economy Ministry’s new agency, GovTech, is already proving its colours. A pilot of the National Single Window, which has been under discussion for decades, went live last week. GovTech and Customs, the two agencies in-charge of this initiative to digitise all import and export approvals, chose to launch a basic version to get the ball rolling.
They also put a great deal of effort into getting different government agencies formally onboard, and were open to help from well-wishers. Lanka Software Foundation is providing technical assistance, and its founder, Sanjiva Weerawarana of WSO2 fame, was pictured in the launch team. In a tweet last month, he shared how much it would cost to build the single window: “Total cost: $0.”
Having the president as the subject minister helped too. AKD has been personally focused on attracting investment and the National Single Window is a priority on that front.
Political tuition
The Chinese Communist Party is preparing to send a delegation to Sri Lanka to share its experiences in party organisation and discipline with the JVP. The party may well need the lesson, given its reluctance to crack the whip on Ranjan Jayalal, the Kaduwela mayor, who is proving to be a bit of a liability.
