[The Admiral]
Nine days before Sinhala and Tamil New Year, the country should be preparing celebrations. Instead, we are watching the greatest show on earth. The Collapse Spectacular. Front row seats. Free admission. Mandatory attendance.
The IMF came to visit. Like relatives checking on a sick patient. They looked at our economic vital signs, checked our financial pulse, examined our monetary breathing, and quietly backed toward the door. No commitment. No rescue plan. No lifeline. They just smiled nervously and promised to think about it. When even the professional money lenders are afraid to touch you, congratulations. You have achieved a new level of disaster.
Electricity prices jumped 25% for middle class families. Surprise. Again. The bill that already made you cry now makes you scream. Families sit in darkness to save money.
Oil prices are rising and fuel stations might run dry without money in hand. New Year without petrol. Very traditional. Very back to basics. Very return to simple village life. Except villages had bullock carts. We will have expensive cars sitting empty like very pretty paperweights.
Doctors are on strike. The entire healthcare system has gone on vacation. Patients can wait. Sick people can suffer. Dying people can die. The Health Minister has a solution. Fire all the doctors.
Fertilizer is vanishing from the country. Farmers stare at empty fields wondering if prayers make rice grow. The next harvest is dying before it starts. The agriculture minister is busy with his house warming.
Businesses are being executed in slow motion. Corporate tax at 30%. Personal income tax at 36%. VAT on top like the cherry on a very expensive poison cake. Then municipal taxes. Then fees. Then levies. Then charges. Then whatever creative taxation the government invents next Tuesday. Shops close. Factories shut. Jobs vanish. But the tax collectors are happy.
They are successfully taxing businesses into extinction. Mission accomplished. No more businesses means no more tax evasion. Perfect logic.
Tourism is dying a slow dignified death. Visitors are choosing other destinations. Other beaches. Other countries with working electricity and available fuel. Very unreasonable of them. Very selfish. We offered them authentic island experience. Sitting in the dark. No transport. Striking doctors. Revolutionary tourism. They just did not appreciate it.
Exports are collapsing. Imports are exploding.
The government that promised to clean corruption now protects its own. Coal tender corruption. Container scandals. Double cab fraud. Every investigation stops at party membership card. Very selective justice. Very revolutionary principles.
Police are demoralised and broken. Crime is rising. Law enforcement is collapsing. The tri-forces have become decorative. Like paintings on walls. Very nice uniforms. Excellent parades. Zero functionality. National security is performance art now.
Cost of living has achieved escape velocity. Rice prices orbiting in space. Vegetable costs reaching the moon. Medicine prices exploring distant galaxies. The Central Bank celebrates aiming for a 5% inflation target while people experience a 500% poverty increase.
Government ministers have become visibly wealthy. The poor people's champions now have champion bank accounts. The fighters for equality now enjoy very unequal luxury. The Marxist revolutionaries discovered that capitalism is actually quite comfortable when you are the capitalist.
Nine days until New Year. Families should be celebrating fresh starts. Instead they are calculating how to survive another month. The traditional house cleaning feels pointless when you might lose the house. The settling of debts feels impossible when debts keep multiplying.
The IMF walked away uncertain. Electricity is unaffordable. Fuel is disappearing. Doctors are striking. Fertilizer is gone. Food is dying in fields. Businesses are closing. Tourism is falling. Exports are failing. Police are broken. Military is decorative. Cost of living is impossible. Ministers are thriving.
The country is burning. The arsonists are counting their money and praising their firefighting skills. In nine days we celebrate a new year that promises only more creative ways to suffer.
Wake up. This is not comedy though it sounds like jokes. This is tragedy performed as farce. This is reality so absurd it seems fictional. And unless something changes, unless someone acts, unless people demand their country back, next New Year will be worse. And the year after that even worse. The decline is not slowing. It is accelerating.