Nishan De Mel of Verite Research speaking on You Tube clarified the main factors and processes that have generated Sri Lanka’s present parlous economic and political malaise.
He pinpointed the “tax cut at the endof 2019 as another major factor in the events and processes that generated the present situation –a situation accentuated by the covid pandemic and the horrendous blows that Mr Covid has dealt to the remittances and toursist flows that have beenn central pillars in our political economy [this Thuppahi’s addition]
A NOTE:
I became acquainted with Nishan about 15 years ago in Oxford when visiting my elder sister Audrey Obeyesekere (alas deceased now). Nishan had completed his D.Phil and was on some assignment. His commitment to Sri Lanka was such that he returned to the land to take up appointments. He became irector of the ICES; but was turfed out by an internal conspiracy perpetuated by a wheeler-dealer.
This event generated a good result: Nishan went on to found VERITE RESEARCH and set up home in Police Park Avenue with a young and energetic staff. Verite has sponsored numerous lectures and/or debates relating to the island’s history, economics and politics. Its investigative projects are wide-ranging.
When Jitto Arulampalam and other friends provided the monies that enabled me to send a stock of my researches, inclusive of the tapes and papers generated by the Roberts Oral Hisory Project of the 1960s by container ship to Sri Lanka, it was Verite staff led by Anishka Arsecularatne who negotiated the process of customs clearance at Colombo Port. Thereafter Premila Gamage of Verite marshalled the arduous work of cataloguing (with the aid of premises provided free of charge by Revd Marc Bilimoria of S. Thomas College and Marshall Fernando of the Ecumenical Institute in Pamankade.) Now, in great satisfaction we can say that the stock is available to the public and reearchers at the National Library Service in Torrington Avenue, Colombo. …. https://island.lk/dr-michael-roberts-donates-his-research-collection-to-national-library/
Take a bow VERITE RESEARCH.
Premila Gamage 
Anishka Arseculeratne
Chalani Ranwela
ALSO VISIT
Most of us have confused between the illness, the causes for that and the symptoms of it. We are analyzing the symptoms at the expense of illness and its causes. Just take this. Most economists talk of the tax income and tax cut in 2019. But no one talks of the tax base. First is arithmetic and the other is economics. Pathetically economists have become mathematicians; playing with numbers instead of strategies. Is the Sri Lanka Economy bankrupt? Orcan one say that the Sri Lankan Economists are bankrupt?