Wednesday 12 August 2015

Government pumps Rs 185 b on four SOEs

The government’s plan to restructure the loss making State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to be self financed without depending on the General treasury will be a reality soon, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.

“At present Sri Lanka has around 245 public Corporations, institutions and the boards classified as SOEs of which 55 have been identified by the government as strategically important enterprises which are engaged in commercial, industrial and financial activities,” Karunanayake said .

He said that as part of the government’s plan to restructure these strategic SOEs, actions have been taken to make SriLankan Airlines, Mihin Lanka, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Water Board to be self financed with capital infusion from the general treasury .

Under this major restructuring programme, the government will make a capital infusion of Rs 65 billion to the Water Board, Rs 100 billion to the Ceylon Petroleum Corp, US Dollar 125 million to Sri Lankan Airlines and US $ 25 million to Mihin Lanka in 2015 by way of Treasury bonds, he said.

Many of the SOEs were making losses for the last several years. Commercial operations of energy, aviation and commuter transport and plantation clusters have ended up with losses, he said.

CPC has an accumulated debt of Rs 234 billion while CEB ‘s corresponding value of Rs 57 billion. Sri Lankan Airlines debt is running at Rs 124 billion. Karunanayake said.

The major setback identified in these institutions were operational inefficiency resulting in poor financial performance, poor product quality and supply shortages, inability to mobilize resources to meet large investments to expand capacity and improve quality and excessive dependence on transfers or credit guarantees from the government causing a heavy burden on the budget.

(HDH)
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