COPE sounds serious siren
Fourteen public enterprises have made losses to the tune of a whopping Rs 1,145 billion in 2012 and unless immediate drastic measures are not taken
Unless measures are not taken, the entire public and the state banking sector would collapse
to arrest this extremely precarious situation the entire public and the state banking sector would collapse, the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) warns.
COPE Chairman and Senior Minister DEW Gunasekara presented its final report for 2012 in Parliament on Tuesday with a series of recommendations.
One of the strongest recommendations made by Minister Gunasekara was to re invest or liquidate public ventures that make losses continuously.
The institutions that had made huge losses last
Lanka Salusala, National Paper Ltd, SLTB, Sri Lanka Ceramics Corporation, Sri Lanka Rubber Manufacturing Export Corporation, State Trading Wholesale Establishment Ltd, had also made huge losses.
year are the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (Rs. 94,508,394,000) SriLankan Airlines (Rs. 17,161,040,000) Janatha Estate Development Board, (Rs. 257,824,000) Mihin Air (Rs. 940,489,000) Ceylon Fisheries Corporation (Rs. 68,970,000) Elkaduwa Plantations (Rs. 29,734,000) Kantale Sugar Ltd, (Rs. 105,072,000).
Lanka Salusala, National Paper Ltd, Sri Lanka Transport Board, Sri Lanka Ceramics Corporation, Sri Lanka Rubber Manufacturing Export Corporation, State Trading Wholesale Establishment Ltd, had also made huge losses.
Minister Gunasekara in his report has reiterated the importance of increasing the professional capacity in the public sector institutions while strongly ruling out the appointment of non-professional political supporters by the government to important managerial and administrative posts.
He has also recommended a suitable salary structure at public ventures like accountants, internal auditors and scientists that meets their professional qualifications in order to retain them in the public sector.
“The greatest challenge faced by the public enterprises with a commercial basis is that they are required to compromise on catering to the national interests of the country whilst being engaged in a highly competitive environment. The severe lossincurring CEB, Mihin Lanka Ltd and CPC are on the verge of collapse as entities which would in turn affect the banking sector in the country,” the report said. Minister Gunasekara stressed the recapitalization of ventures like national carrier SriLankan and Mihin Air Ltd. as the two airlines have been launched without capital investment.