News
SJB will support Govt to restructure the loss-making State institutions – Eran
Main opposition SJB parliamentarian Eran Wickramaratne says that restructuring of government institutions which are running at losses is an imperative task for the development of the country.Addressing a media conference held at the Opposition Leader’s office in Colombo, the MP said that the country has been economically ruined as a result of the government following wrong policies one after the other claiming to follow socialism, liberalism and neoliberal policies.
“Not only has the country not received international support due to its failure to maintain the macroeconomic fundamentals, but the opportunities available to the people of this country to have the people to people relations internationally are also shrinking,” Wickramaratne said.
He said it has been reported that in the first four months of 2022, the losses from 52 government institutions (SoEs) are Rs 560 billion, and the Lotus Tower is full of Chinese debt without any return.
“The question that arises from these published reports is whether the government institutions of this country are run for the people, or for the maintenance of a small group of employees,” he said.
“Governments have had to raise taxes to sustain loss-making institutions and cover their losses. Such loss-making institutions should not be maintained like this. It is time to restructure many government institutions in the country without false pretenses. A situation has arisen where even an airline which has internationally competitive market cannot be maintained in our country today, so they should be quickly restructured and burdening the people with taxes to maintain these SoEs should be stopped.”
Based on the importance of practicality rather than theory in governing a country, the good governance government introduced a price formula to maintain the oil price locally compared to its international price. This government ridiculed it then as the opposition, but now it talks about a price formula and sets the price accordingly, Wickramaratne pointed out.
Analyzing the sufferings of the people due to the government’s policy of controlling commodity prices, the MP said this government threw away the fuel price formula introduced by the good governance government. In order to be popular, by giving petrol worth Rs 400 per liter for Rs. 200, the poor man got an advantage of Rs 2000 when he bought eight liters of petrol for his three-wheeler. But when a rich man bought 40 liters of fuel for his vehicle, he got an advantage of Rs. 16,000. He accused that the country has been plunged in to the bottom of the economy due to such deceptive work.
“The Pohottu government, which followed such a short-sighted and wrong governance, is accompanied by academics and those academics have not managed even a shop, have not made a product, have no experience of being engaged in a service. The economic theories of some of those scholars, who were not engaged in any activity that generates a single rupee of income, have not helped the country.”
During an operation conducted in the dark hours of 20 Jan 26, the Sri Lanka Navy seized two (02) Indian fishing boats and apprehended seven (07) Indian fishermen while they were poaching in Sri Lankan waters, off Kovilan, Jaffna.
The seized boats and Indian fishermen was to be handed over to the Fisheries Inspector of Myliddy, Jaffna for onward legal proceedings.
Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya participated in a series of high-level bilateral meetings on January 20 on the sidelines of the 56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
The Prime Minister attended a productive bilateral meeting with Mr. Jozef Síkela, European Commissioner for International Partnerships. During the discussion, both sides focused on strengthening Sri Lanka–EU cooperation and advancing mutual interests.
Prime Minister Amarasuriya also met with Mr. Masato Kanda, President and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), at the WEF Congress Centre. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss ongoing engagement and future collaboration between Sri Lanka and the ADB.
In addition, the Prime Minister held discussions with Mr. Hassan El Houry, Chairman of Menzies Aviation, where opportunities for collaboration in aviation services and connectivity were explored.
The Prime Minister also participated in a high-level dialogue at the Global Tourism Forum held at the Euronews Hub, Piz Buin, Davos, as part of the World Economic Forum engagements.
Dr. Anil Jayantha, Minister of Labour, and the Deputy Minister of Finance were also present at these meetings.
[Prime Minister’s Media Division]
A discussion to review the progress of projects implemented under the Ministry of Digital Economy in 2025 and to examine new projects planned to be implemented under the 2026 budgetary allocations was held on Monday (19) morning at the Presidential Secretariat under the patronage of the Minister of Digital Economy, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Special attention was paid to the plans and progress of programmes to promote a cashless economy.
Accordingly, an extensive discussion was held on the progress of projects planned by the Government to promote a cashless economy in Sri Lanka, including the digitalisation of government institutions, promotion of QR transactions, establishment of a Cloud infrastructure centre, a national programme to provide high-speed broadband facilities, provision of single-window facilities, the digital identity card project and the project to digitalise payment of traffic spot fines.
Noting that much of the economic activity of rural communities remains in the informal sector, the President emphasised the need to formally document these activities and stressed that this is essential when formulating future economic and development plans.
The performance, progress and future plans of institutions under the Ministry of Digital Economy, including Sri Lanka CERT, the Data Protection Authority and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), were also reviewed.
The current status and new recruitments of the GovTech institution, established to implement the Government’s digitalisation programme, were also discussed.
Deputy Minister of Digital Economy, Eranga Weeraratne, Secretary to the President, Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, Senior Presidential Adviser on Digital Economy, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Senior Additional Secretary to the President, Roshan Gamage, Secretary to the Ministry of Digital Economy, Varuna Sri Dhanapala, senior officials of the Ministry and heads of institutions under the Ministry also participated in the discussion.
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