How to manage change in Sri Lanka?

We’ll need to keep our act together – with clear plans, arrangements and disciplined follow through,why the nation voted a new President to bring about a seismic change with our Parliamentary General Election on the 14 November 2024. Distractions may interrupt the flow and take us off track, there’ll also be lots of peripheral issues to attend to, so keeping sight of our priorities and doing first things first, will ensure that we are productive and effective. To manage change in the way we go about doing things, in the way we want the Government to help us do things, in the way we ourselves help our Government to deliver on its promises, we have a duty as citizens, to keep to our promises,to pay our due taxes,especially the overdue dues and taxes, in the first instance. As we all know that we cannot put the blame for corruption, for mismangement, for waste and for our indolence and inaction, we have a serious responsibilty.Tax avoidance involves bending the rules of the tax system to try to gain a tax advantage that Parliament never intended.Not paying the right amount of tax also means that our vital public services like schools and hospitals don’t get all the money they should. Why is it more expensive to be poor? It is because those who are rich want to keep the disadvantaged always poor. To reduce poverty, government policies could include: Means-tested welfare benefits to the poorest in society; for example, unemployment benefit, income support and housing benefit. Minimum wages. Regulation of labour markets, for example, statutory minimum wages. Policies to reduce or alleviate poverty in Sri Lanka is an absolute necessity and we need a mechanism, a policy to to be established soon. But first and foremost we need a Department and officers called Tax Police, to collect unpaid but promised taxes from those who have evaded paying their due taxes,which they promised settlement over years. Why has this group of people been let off the hook? Is it because of who they knew in government, or what they knew how to delay their tax payments, or both? Going to manage change in our tax laws, we need to simplify our taxes, give inducements to early settlement.Overcoming these challenges requires holistic change management. To make change management part of the new government transformation is a thoughtful, collaborative, time consuming process. It has to have a short term, medium term and long term way that results can be obtained in faster time to value, less risk, and assured returns. It explores the 5 critical steps to change management in any transformation project, and how the right tools can provide the insight and information you need to tackle them successfully. It needs first to ientify and engage with all the people in all parts of our country. There should be no one above the law, or no section of of our country's population, treated differently, because of class,creed, or language. To manage change,we need diversity. Secondly we need vision to bring evert part of our country on board. Thirdly, we need to frm Cross-functional Teams and Keep Everyone on the Same Page of our development plans. Fourthly we need proper and reaistic plan implemention. Last but not the least, we need to communicate in the langugage that the people know and understand in every part of our country to empower our people, not in one one language, but in all languages to celebrate our milestones of poverty alleviation and our successful implementation of our plans,over time. Victor Cherubim