Welcome to Sri Lanka
A country like no other
* Despite being a beautiful country with huge tourist potential, fewer than 500,000 visit annually.
* An outdated railway network where the 100 km between Colombo and Kandy offers wonderful scenery but takes 3 -4 hours in noisy and dirty trains.
* Buses that are often overcrowded and dangerous driving that goes unregulated.
* Drivers who ignore numerous laws in overtaking, lack of lighting at night, smoke belching from exhausts, tyres, brakes, steering that are often in a dangerous condition, and police who take scant notice of these violations.
* Advertising hoardings, often dangerous, erected without regulation on main roads. Posters stuck on almost any flat surface.
* Piles of rubbish everywhere and anywhere.
* Restaurants and eating places that have sometimes been inspected as unhygienic yet continue to operate.
* An educational system that relies on private tuition classes to have creditable results.
* Universities that have very low ranking among institutions in South Asia.
* 25% of teachers absent on any typical day according to the Minister of Education.
* Students who study English daily for 11 years but unable to speak that language.
* Poor tourist facilities such as toilets, visitors centres, information centres.
* Noise pollution through powerful loudspeakers from places of worship.
* Over 100 Ministries and an over-staffed civil service employing over 1 million workers.
* Public servants in high office involved in corruption and illegal activities but never facing prison.
* Government departments that make a culture of not responding to letters, phone calls and emails and often are far from being "civil"
* Inflation that averages over 20% for the past few years through continually printing money to pay for a war and an expensive bureaucracy.
* Despite a high rate of literacy, many thousands of unemployed graduates.
* Malnutrition among 25% of children who are either stunted or wasted.
* Politically independent yet relying on massive financial assistance from Japan, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, 1 million citizens working abroad, and government bond issues, to prevent bankruptcy.
* A majority of public buildings and works donated by friendly foreign governments.
* An absence of a National Art gallery, Concert Hall, Theatre, Museums, and Parks that meet an acceptable high standard
* A government that has become self-righteous and ignores, deplores and restricts criticism.
* BUT a friendly and hard working population trying to make the best of a difficult living situation exacerbated by poor governance over several decades.
Concerned citizen
Kandy.
www island.lk
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