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| Sunday, 29 February 2004 |
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Foreign aid should be wisely used by Hiran H. Senewiratne Sri Lanka should be more cautious when utilising foreign aid as it would affect future generations since the burden of re-paying would fall on them, said Chairman, Joint Business Forum (JBiz) and Commercial Bank of Sri Lanka Mahendra Amarasuriya. Japan had pledged a sum of US$ 450 billion to the country as a long term loan package, which should be utilised wisely, otherwise it would spell a bleak for the country, said Amarasuriya delivering the keynote address at the 8th Lanka Business Report-Lanka Business Online CEO forum. He said that foreign aid received by the country should be handled in a proper manner without deviating from the terms and conditions under which it had been agreed upon. Every government that would come to power should be mindful of that fact. Misuse of foreign aid was detrimental to the future generation, who would have to pay back at a rate of around Rs 200 per dollar. Even at the expense of all the assets it would not be able to settle its debts". The infrastructure development of the country was inadequate but the forthcoming Japanese aid package should be utilised for that purpose. This was indeed vital to attract Foreign Direct Investment. Therefore, the private sector should also get involved to expedite this whole process, he said. Only 99, 200-km of roads had been built between 1984 to 1996, which was inadequate for a developing country like Sri Lanka. Construction of some of the proposed major highways had come to a stand-still owing to lack of funds. Though the domestic airport network had a tremendous potential, if the government could not handle it properly, it was better to hand over to the private sector, he said. The Colombo port played a key role in the country's economic development and soon it would reach the maximum capacity. However, there was no clear cut policy for another port to cater to the ever increasing demand of handling cargo clearence etc, he said. Referring to the past experience over power cuts, he said that energy charges were very high in Sri Lanka compared to other countries in the region, which had a direct bearing on the manufacturing sector a of sum of Rs 500 million was spent to conduct a feasibility study on a coal power plant project, but now it had been revealed it would not be viable due to various factors, he said. This country did not have a development policy for any sector such as agriculture, fisheries etc. and, even a master plan, for the booming tourist industry, he said. Commenting on corporate governance, he said that the private sector should follow international corporate governance. |
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