In short Ratwatte is telling the State give us more capital and let the director board run the airline as it deems fit.
What is curious is that the CEO complains that while the government is the major shareholder it has not capitalised the airline at levels needed. So he expects the State as major shareholder to pump in adequate capital and at the same time allow the director board to run the company abandoning its oversight responsibilities.
In short Ratwatte is telling the State give us more capital and let the director board run the airline as it deems fit.
Therein lies the rub. When President Sirisena summoned the airline board and he and his ministers questioned the directors it was because it was perceived that the chairman and CEO were taking decisions that apparently were contrary to the views of many on the board.
In fact as I said some months ago when the directors appeared before the president and the ministers there was a clear division of opinion and the board seemed as divided as Gaul in Caesar’s time.
“It is clear that the board is badly divided," President Maithripala Sirisena was quoted as saying by a ministerial source at the meeting, a news report said. "The President felt that the allegations against the SriLankan board are true."
“What the cabinet found out today is that the CEO and the chairman have been taking arbitrary decisions that were not in the interest of the airline," the same ministerial source was quoted as saying. He said the president insisted that the recommendations of the Weliamuna report be implemented immediately.
It was Prime Minister Wickremesinghe who appointed a committee of inquiry headed by senior lawyer J.C Weliamuna to look at the state of the national airline. The inquiry report made several strictures and called for action to be taken including filing criminal proceedings against the previous chairman and the CEO. It also made critical remarks about the current head of human resources who was at the airline during the previous administration.
The Weliamuna inquiry found that Pradeepa Kekulawala, the head of Human Resources, allowed sexual perverts a free run. The current management has not taken any action against Kekulawala, ministers had been told.
More recently there have been differences of opinion between the Pilots Guild on several issues, one that seemed to concern the safety of aircraft.
Media reports have highlighted the goings on at SriLankan. In one instance a virtual scholarship was granted to Ratwatte costing the tax payer around US$ 50,000.This led Chairman Ajith Dias to make what airline sources are said to have claimed was an unprecedented move. He is said to have ordered Capt. Rajind Ranatunga the Head of Flight Operations to hand over the entire Crew Rostering Department to Pradeepa Kekulawala the airline’s Head of Human Resources reports said. He is under a cloud following the Weliamuna report but Dias is looking the other way.
This is after Capt. Ranatunga had only a few days earlier written to CEO Ratwatte and asked him to ‘back off ’, after the CEO had muscled his way and got his assigned Line Flying Instructor changed to an Instructor of his choice for his first flight scheduled for July 12, 2017.
These instances are but a few of what has not only been reported in the media but have been the talk in Colombo’s chattering circles. Take for instance a request made to the airline under the Right to Information Act for details of the salaries, allowances, perks enjoyed by those at the top of the pile. The airline has refused to release this information.
This is not information that could be refused under Article 5 of the RTI law which sets out the exemptions. But the airline is deliberately refusing to provide this because the public will then know the huge salaries, perks and privileges that the top officials have got together and carved out for themselves.
It is to this board which has found to be fractious as President Sirisena’s words clearly imply, that CEO Ratwatte wants to entrust the management of the airline.
In a press release issued by the airline somewhere in August 2016 it said that there was now “heightened accountability”. That surely is curious when the airline refuses to answer questions under an RTI law which this government is proud of.
When the board was under fire and feeling the heat, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe who appointed the board, is said to have mentioned that he would be reconstituting the board.
President Sirisena was also hoping that after such a battering the chairman would have the civility and good sense to pack up and go home to enjoy a more restful life. In this way the president hoped he would not have to act and throw the whole lot out. It would have been bad for the government and he wanted to avoid that.
Well, three months have passed and nothing has happened. What is it that the French say: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.”