Why Dr Wignaraja Is Wrong to Lecture the NPP on “Slow Reform”
Dr Ganeshan Wignaraja’s criticism of the NPP government for being “slow on reform” may sound technocratically elegant to regional and international investors, but it is politically ahistorical and economically selective.
Sri Lanka’s reform deficit did not begin with the NPP. It is the cumulative product of decades of elite capture under governments led by Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe—administrations that substituted reform with rent distribution, policy arbitrage, and the licensing of economic activity to friends, family members, and politically connected intermediaries.
Reform Was Never Slow — It Was Never Real
To describe Sri Lanka’s past as a story of “gradual reform” is misleading. What prevailed was not gradualism, but cosmetic compliance:
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State-owned enterprises were preserved as patronage hubs.
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Trade liberalisation was selectively applied to benefit cronies.
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Energy pricing, procurement, and taxation were distorted to protect politically favoured sectors.
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Productivity-enhancing reforms were postponed precisely because they threatened entrenched interests.
Neither Mahinda Rajapaksa nor Ranil Wickremesinghe reformed land markets, dismantled monopolistic licensing regimes, cleaned up public procurement, or depoliticised regulatory institutions. What they did reform—consistently and efficiently—was the pathway through which political loyalty translated into economic privilege.
Against this backdrop, blaming the NPP for “slow reform” within months of assuming office borders on analytical bad faith.
Cyclical Recovery Was Engineered by Pain, Not Vision
Dr Wignaraja is correct that Sri Lanka’s post-2022 recovery is largely cyclical. But he omits a crucial fact:
this stabilisation was achieved through public pain, not elite reform.
The IMF programme and Central Bank tightening restored macro stability by:
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Collapsing real wages
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Raising indirect taxes
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Compressing demand
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Freezing public investment
What was not done under the previous regime was the politically difficult work of dismantling corruption networks, auditing crisis-era profiteering, or prosecuting financial crimes linked to fuel, power, pharmaceuticals, and sovereign borrowing.
The NPP inherited an economy that was “stabilised” in appearance but structurally unreformed in substance.
Reform Requires Legitimacy, Not Just Speed
The NPP’s approach reflects a hard-learned lesson Sri Lanka ignored for decades:
reform without legitimacy collapses.
Sweeping reforms pushed rapidly under discredited political leadership—such as during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s unelected presidency—were always destined to lack durability. Investor confidence is not built merely on speed, but on:
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Political credibility
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Social consent
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Institutional enforcement
The NPP’s insistence on rebuilding governance, restoring accountability, and sequencing reforms is not hesitation; it is risk management in a deeply fractured polity.
Climate Shocks Are Not a Technocratic Surprise
Dr Wignaraja is right to highlight Cyclone Ditwah and climate vulnerability. But Sri Lanka’s weak disaster response is not a failure of post-2024 governance—it is the consequence of:
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Hollowed-out local government
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Politicised disaster management agencies
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Years of underinvestment diverted to vanity infrastructure
The NPP did not design these weaknesses. It inherited them.
What it is attempting—often inconveniently for international observers—is to integrate climate resilience, fiscal realism, and social protection into a coherent framework, rather than treating disasters as donor-funded side projects.
The Real Question Investors Should Ask
The real question is not whether the NPP is “fast enough” for investor roadshows. It is this:
Is Sri Lanka, for the first time, attempting reform without auctioning the state to oligarchs?
That alone represents a structural break from the past.
Dr Wignaraja’s warning about cycles of debt and stagnation is valid. But to imply that the NPP is the source of reform inertia—rather than the first government attempting to dismantle it—is to confuse the arsonist with the fire brigade.
Sri Lanka does not need another lecture on reform speed.
It needs, finally, reform honesty.