Controversial businessmen Harry Jayawardena has claimed that state-owned Sri Lanka Insurance Corp (SLIC) is close to selling a stake to the public to repay Rs 6 billion owed to Distilleries Corp of Sri Lanka (DCSL) but a top SLIC source says, ‘There is no such decision.’
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| Harry Jayawardene |
Responding to a query from a shareholder about the money the government owes DCSL after the privatization was reversed by the Supreme Court in June 2009, Mr. Jayawardena – speaking at the DCSL annual general meeting, said the Cabinet had approved the sale of a stake of SLIC to the public to repay DCSL.
“This was his (Harry’s) response on this question,” a SLIC director present at the meeting, told the Sunday Times.
SLIC was sold to DCSL under the government’s privatization programme but the decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.
SLIC Chairman Gamini Senerath was abroad and unavailable for comment but another senior SLIC official told the Sunday Times there was no decision to sell a stake in SLIC. “There is no such decision -- neither from the Cabinet nor the government,” he said, adding however that the Treasury Bills that the Supreme Court ordered to be issued to DCSL in lieu of the cash payment of Rs 6 billion are yet to be issued.
The DCSL chief, responding to another question about DCSL’s 30% stake in Lanka Hospitals (formerly Apollo which Mr. Jayewardena owned through SLIC), said he would sell this stake sometime later.
Mr. Jayewardena purchased SLIC through a subsidiary Milford Holdings and the court ruling ordered the government to return the Rs. 6 billion paid for the 90% stake through the issue of Treasury Bills with a maturity period of five years.
The final amount that Mr. Jayewardena paid for SLIC is a disputed issue. Nihal Sri Ameresekere, when he was chairman of the Public Enterprise Reform Commission, said his valuation of SLIC showed that the company was worth around Rs. 25 billion. |
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