Financial Times

Too many cooks to revive businesses
Spoiling the tsunami and post-conflict rebuilding process
The Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Sri Lanka (FCCISL) last week slammed unnamed foreign organisations of disturbing the chamber movement by offering various grants for war and tsunami-affected businessmen which have either not been given or have failed in its disbursement process.

“It is disturbing that some foreign organisations have disturbed members of the chamber movement affiliated to the FCCISL by offering various grants which have not seen any physical transformation in the members concerned or any success stories,” noted FCCISL President Nawaz Rajabdeen, without naming any organisation.

Speaking to The Sunday Times FT during a one-day trip to Jaffna, he said the FCCISL is an apex body covering 46 chambers across Sri Lanka and currently undertaking a foreign donor-funded Rs 750 million project titled “Back-to-Business” to uplift both tsunami-affected and war-devastated businesses. “We will only be happy to give these grants to chambers not only to help the tsunami- affected but also those battered by two decades of war. No government at any stage has addressed these issues. We have taken this challenge to put these people back to business.

This is our dream and we will implement all our projects in next six months,” he said. Rajabdeen, who met officials of the Yarlpanam Chamber of Commerce and also opened the chamber’s new building, said Jaffna needs small investments. The FCCISL has suggested sustainable projects to members of this northern chamber with minimum investment in recycling waste paper, plastic, cement-based industries and light metal industry.

He said the FCCISL could arrange for funds to set up these units on a micro and small scale level which could then sell their production in Jaffna and other nearby districts. He said the FCCISL has also through the Yarlpanam chamber promoted gender issues and helped create the Yarlpanam Women’s chamber of commerce. “We will officially recognise and support this chamber through material and financial support. We will also affiliate this chamber with women’s chambers in other regions so that they can interact and exchange ideas in finding markets for their produce.”

FCCISL Secretary-General Samantha Samantha Abeywickrema, speaking at the opening of the new office of the Yarlpanam Chamber of Commerce, lamented the absence of good projects from the northeast for funding purposes in the Back-to-Business programme.“We need your proposals. We want to given preference to the northeast region as nothing has happened here (to uplift businesses). Our rate of utilisation of funds available under this project is poor and similar to the utilisation trends of donor funds by the country as a whole. We have a huge budget (Rs 750 million) but not being fully disbursed,” he said.

Yarlpanam chamber President S. Ruthiralingam, in a separate interview with this newspaper, said that apart from the construction industry, there has been no serious attempt to revive other industries since the ceasefire.

There are just a few non-construction industry initiatives like a small re-treading factory and a garments manufacturer supplying the local market. “We need to develop skills. That’s our biggest problem. There are people who have money but lack knowledge and skills. We should not take on large scale projects/investments but resort to a step by step approach and gradually build large businesses,” he said.

Ruthiralingam believes there is a change in the mindset of the young people of Jaffna with many looking at careers other than the traditional ones like medicine, engineering or the public sector. After A levels, young people are opting for the technical side.—computers, CIMA or CIM (marketing). Career guidance is part of the discussion now unlike before, he said.

However due to the large flow of expatriate funds – between 60 to 70 percent of Jaffna’s economy is run by money sent from Tamils living abroad – most young people are idle and lazy. “You would find many of them running around in a Bajaj motorcycle and cradling a mobile phone,” he added.

The Yarlpanam chamber President, a qualified engineer, is disappointed that government authorities in Jaffna don’t take the private sector seriously and enlist their support in nation building.

“Elsewhere, everybody talks of the private sector being responsible for the 80 percent of the economy and being the engine of growth. But in Jaffna it’s a different situation. Our views are not called for; we are left out of the development planning process though there is a lot we can contribute,” he said.

In one example, he had to point out to state agencies at a meeting in Jaffna that all buildings after the tsunami should be cyclone-resistance structures in line with a state circular issued after the 1978 cyclone that battered the eastern region.

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