President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he aims to make Sri Lanka a developed country by 2048 and that the youth of this country have been allowed to contribute towards this goal.
The President was speaking during a discussion held on Saturday via Zoom technology with the youth of the “2048 Youth Platform on the Journey towards a Developed State” programme.
The youth were given an opportunity to question the President about the social, economic and political issues of the country as well as the problems faced by today’s youth.
Responding to questions the President said “first, we are working towards creating a situation where our country can move forward. When I took over the country, the country’s economy had completely collapsed. If we are unable to recover from this predicament, we will have no future. During the agitations in the country recently, I took over this government and initiated measures to resurrect the bankrupt economy. The youth of the country have the opportunity to take part in it. One of the steps that I have proposed is to appoint five young people to every parliamentary oversight committee. The selection of members and chairpersons of the oversight committees has not been completed yet. Similarly, we intend to legalize the youth parliament. There is an opportunity for new youth to come forward through the proposed Jana Sabha. In addition, we have invited the groups that joined the struggle but did not resort to violence, to participate in this process. I hope this move will produce the new leadership we need.
I would like to assure you that we are now paving the way for it”.
The President also said the youth should seize this opportunity and contribute towards the country’s development without waiting to be invited to do so. The President went on to say that the biggest challenge facing Sri Lanka in this century is how to move forward with post-war modernization.
On food security the President said the Government has already started a programme and in addition, the programme of providing fertilizer for agriculture has also been implemented.
He said the country’s agriculture has to be modernized. “There are agrarian service centres and several officers are working at the village level but they have not been deployed to duties systematically. Thus, when agriculture is modernized, we have a lot of work to be done” he added.
Responding to a question on brain drain the President said the high rate of brain drain commenced last year. “It has increased rapidly this year with the economic crisis. Future uncertainty is the cause of it. I would like to raise two matters in this regard. The first issue is if it is just to leave the country have received free education and get a good job. This situation will last until the middle of next year. Government revenue has dropped to 8.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product which should be raised to 14 per cent. The non-taxation in the past is the root cause of this issue. Now, we have got to move forward with the new tax systems” he added.
