The paralyzing cost of living
by Anu- Dehiwala
Judging by their abject failure to do anything concrete to reduce the Cost of Living, one is forced to question whether our President the Trade Minister and the horde of Ministers, Deputies and miscellaneous band of learned advisors, of how much we are suffering under the unbearable burden of a staggering Cost of Living.
The Trade Minister must wake up to reality. Instead of spending his time with his claims that prices are going downwards and in defending the companies and other institutions which keep raising prices he should buckle down to the task of reducing the cost of essentials.
Of course, the simplest and most obvious way to save billions which can be used to ease the burden is to drastically reduce the world record number of Ministers, deputies and advisors who are draining the blood of a suffering nation,
The President as always was swift to appoint a sizeable Committee headed by the Prime Minister, to look into methods of reducing the CoL. But apart from promises we have not seen any concrete results. The P.M. has made an announcement that there would be no more increases in the price of petrol this year. This is seen as a sure indication that a price increase will be announced soon, one remembers instructions by the Committee not to increase fuel prices this year again. The expected increase was announced very quickly thereafter
The U.N.P/Mangala combination do not maintain the momentum of their protests, one party is busy buying Benz cars beating the war drums, the other is hanging on to the Satakaya, afraid of an election, and consumer resistance organizations are absent. So prices of essentials keep soaring
Where can we look to for succour?
God save Sri Lanka!
