SEC says it was appreciated for timely completion of projects

Last week Sunday Times INSIGHT headlined “Debt ridden, loss making SEC pays for dubious award" has drawn a response from the SEC. Here are edited excerpts of a lengthy SEC statement.

Due to space issues, only a portion of the letter is shown below.

Diversified, Continuously Growing, Profit Making Construction Giant State Engineering Corporation (SEC) Deserves Recognition

The main feature of the Balance sheet of the organization involves in undertaking construction projects, construction industry experts will agree, is due to customers and due from customers. These amounts don’t imply that the organization is "debt-ridden" but sustainable and trustworthy organization with the capacity of payback.

Regarding the Parliamentary COPE Committee investigations, SEC explained the actual reason behind it as those 47 contracts had reported loss not because of the inefficiency of SEC but because of the technical issues in finalizing work scope, extra works and delay in finalizing technical details. But at the same COPE meeting, SEC was appreciated for the outstanding performance for timely completion of the projects from 2010 to 2012 with minimizing overheads and wastages. It is a well-known fact that in an international forum or a business forum there might be a registration fee. In the same manner, SEC paid only a registration fee in order to participate at this global quality convention. In the meantime, SEC had looked for more information about BID about the background of the award ceremonies and previous sessions.

The article did not dig in to Corporative Insurance and other companies in Sri Lanka which has participated in previous years.

Last week’s article may tarnish the name of SEC which has 50 years of engineering excellence who is also the Engineer to the Nation. It alleged Chairman, Mr. Jagath Perera phrasing his statement ‘we got selected, we don’t know how’. The fact that the article is trying to point out is SEC participated blindly. But the Chairman repeatedly stated that SEC has been awarded for recorded achievements in previous two years, quality service, excellent managements, maintaining ISO 9001:2008 . The State Engineering Corporation has clearly understood that to maintain the leadership position in the construction industry, to ensure continual growth of the organization, and to achieve increased market share, it must deliver quality products and services.

SEC and its approximately 2,700 employees deserve recognition. The Employees of SEC is committed that they will continue in more professional manner even if they encounter resistant and criticisms from the environment. This was written for the encouragement of the committed workforce of SEC. News Editor says:

The purpose of the article was to expose fake awards touted by various Sri Lankan companies and not to demean the reputation of the SEC. The headline was inspired by numerous COPE committee investigations into SEC's finances. The Sunday Times stands by the accuracy of the INSIGHT Report.

Awards made by BID as revealed are scams and thus have no merit. BID's website says they are affiliated with a publishing company called "Imar Press". Similar to another publishing company, the American Biographical Institute (also exposed in the article), they run awards schemes as a side business to make money. Scammers such as BID target gullible and unsuspecting companies desperate to promote themselves and charge exorbitant amounts for awards as "registration fees”. Insisting that Korea Electric Power or Reliance Group won BID awards does not justify the credibility of the award nor does it explain SEC's sloppy research.

The SEC is prominently featured in the article over private companies because SEC is a state-sponsored institution that has an obligation in the public interest to manage its finances responsibly and wisely, especially in light of its financial troubles. All quotes attributed to the SEC Chairman are on record and therefore are not "allegations." Despite acknowledging a fake award, the SEC remains an important corporation in the country with great potential to service the nation in the future. The hardworking employees of the SEC perhaps deserve an award for their service, but such should come from a reputable and recognized institution, not some spurious publication company in Spain.