Parliament will hold a day-long debate on the latest report of the Committee On Public Enterprise (COPE) on Tuesday, its Chairman, Senior Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera said.
The debate has been initiated by the Opposition for a detailed discussion on the 176-page report which examined the accounts of 229 institutions, and was presented to the House in December 2011.
The accounts of State institutions examined by COPE included State banks, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and the Ceylon Electricity Board. It was found that all these institutions violated financial guidelines set out for them.
Among the issues highlighted in the report is the need for more teeth for the oversight committee, including powers, to summon former heads of State-run institutions, as well as bring under its preview, private limited companies incorporated under the Companies Act. The report has also called for more scrutiny of the eligibility of persons appointed as heads of State corporations, departments and authorities, saying that they should not only be academically qualified, but professionally too.
The Committee categorised the institutions into four groups, namely those functioning profitably, those functioning at break-even, i.e. avoiding loss, but failing to make a profit, those institutions whose revenue is dwindling and those institutions running at a loss.
“The most alarming fact is the decreasing revenue of institutions such as the State Mortgage & Investment Bank, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and SLT, which was around 90% by 2009,” the report elaborated. |
E-mail
