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| Sunday, 24 October 2004 |
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Corporation Chairmen to serve agreed period by Elmo Leonard Government was intent on ensuring that chairmen of state corporations remain in office for an agreed period of time, irrespective of changes following elections and in the process affording these chairmen the resolve to make decisions and carry them out, Senior Advisor to the President, Mano Tittawela said. Under SEMA - State Enterprise Management Agency Act, the persons appointed as chairmen of corporations would be those appropriately qualified to do the job, Tittawela said at a seminar of privatisation, held last week. The word privatisation had no definite meaning and was not included in the dictionary, other speakers said. The word "peoplisation" was first used by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, meaning intent on giving over state-owned enterprises to the private sector, or to the people, to manage. The word changed to privatisation. Government's decision is not to privatise strategic enterprises because government has realised that the railway, for instance, could be better managed by competent people, cutting down costs and losses. It was not the ownership of the enterprise which mattered, but its management. Some of these state enterprises could go into joint ventures with the private sector, while remaining in the ownership of government. State enterprises must also ensure that they use modern technology, Tittawela said. The seminar in question is a series of The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) in association with the German aid agency Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAF). Chairman CCC, Deva Rodrigo said that nationalisation of the tea plantations in the 1970's led to a drop in yield and was overtaken by India and Kenya. Subsequent privatisation led to an increase in yield. Rodrigo noted that a monopoly held by the private sector could bear more negative factors than a public sector monopoly. The private sector could increase prices, without having to account for the people. The State Pharmaceutical Corporation was running at a profit and it imports pharmaceutical from all over the world under the generic name instead of an expensive brand name. If the private sector importers of pharmaceutical could team up, they could control the price of drugs to bring them higher margins of profit ignoring the hardship to the consumer. If viable state corporations remained in the ownership of the state, the state could draw on its resources when necessary, Rodrigo said. Dr Jagath Wickramasinghe, Director General National Institute of Education and Professor of Economics, University of Sri Jayawardenapura said that there were benefits to government from having control of some state enterprises. However, as a safeguard to corruption stringent measures against corruption could be introduced through the Bribery and Corruption Act. Had the CWE been in the hands of government, it could have imported rice from Pakistan and brought down the price of rice to the consumer. Comparing the cost of travel with the service provided by the New York Transport Board and the CTB, Dr Wickramasinghe found that there was not much difference between the two, while the New york service is of a much higher standard. Thus, the Private sector is not the only engine of growth, he said. Dr Carola Stein, Resident Representative Cetes said that from her experience, government corporations bore the reputation of corrupt bodies and privatisation was a good measure. From her experience of the unified Germany, Dr Stein said that the state enterprises of the former Eastern part of the country bore huge losses, preventing Germany enjoying higher economic growth. |
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