Web portal of public enterprises launched

The launching of the official web portal of public enterprises was held at the BMICH last week. Skills Development and Public Enterprise Reforms Minister Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi was the chief guest of the occasion. Following are excerpts from the speech made by the minister on that day.

Although there are about 250 public enterprises under the various ministries, there is little awareness among the general public as to what they are, what they do, who runs them and their profitability.

Since, every citizen of this country is a stakeholder in each of these institutions, and since each enterprise bears accountability to its stakeholders, transparent and easily accessible corporate and performance information with regard to these institutions has long been overdue.

It is in this context that we have established this web site.

Before clarifying my role as the minister in charge of the subject of public enterprise reforms, let me pose a question to the Public Enterprises who have gathered here today. "Are we moving forward along a way paved in accordance with the currently declared government policy on public enterprises?" How many among the PEs gathered here have a good answer to this question? Should we not quite sensibly address our minds to this question?

Do we have, by the way, a common understanding of the current government policy on PEs, and what has our response to this policy been? "Mahinda Chintana" states that the government ownership of the national assets will be continued and more professional management of national assets and public institutions will be ensured.

Moreover, the competition coming from the private sector is becoming more and more severe and intense, as they have more flexible access to capital, technology, and better human resources (Just think about the number of MBAs getting into the market today during a year and how many of them join the PEs! Most of them are obviously absorbed into the private sector)...And I can add a lot more to the list that forms the answer to our proposed question!! But isn't that a fair answer?

What is now also important is to maintain, collectively and interactively use, and sustainably manage the Web Portal.

I propose to the PEs in the country that we enter into a collective journey towards enhancing our performance for the betterment of the country, in which the participants will be my ministry, line ministries, PERC, PEs, and the general public.