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| Tuesday, 11 February 2003 |
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World Bank to take over Financial Sector Reforms By Ravi Ladduwahetty The World Bank will shortly take over the consultancy services of the Financial Sector Reforms and will continue. The Financial Sector Reforms Committee which was appointed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in March 2002, has seen to the completion of around 60 percent of the mandate it has been entrusted and has had over twenty meetings todate, the Consultant to the Committee Dr. Wickrema Weerasooria told the Daily News yesterday. Now, that the mandate of the Committee is over, the wrap up meeting of the Committee will be held today with Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Faiz Mohideen. The major areas are driven by the Ministry of Finance and supported by the Finance Ministry and the Monetary Board and some cover the line Ministries, Dr. Weerasooria said. There are three areas that legislation is being drafted. These are: The Money Laundering Law, the Digital Computer Crime Law and the Electronic Transactions Law which have had their origins from western examples. Dr Weerasooria said that the laws relating to money laundering were not so relevant to Sri Lanka as this country was not yet a safe haven for terrorist funds. However, this was quite different from tax evasions, he said. He said that some of the radical pieces of legislation in the near future was the Consumer Affairs Authority Act which would enable consumers to complain to the authority about various professional malpractices and also negligence.This would mean that a patient could complain about a doctor who was seeing 50 patients an hour which meant that they could not have equal attention or complain about a lawyer who levied prior charges ahead of a case, but was not present in court. This would ensure that professional abide by their commitments and obligations. All professions have been covered in this piece of legislation and also covers the areas of banking, insurance, financial services and others, he said.The legislation has been passed in Parliament and the Speaker has to ratify it after the Amendments are made on a request by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. The only other piece of legislation which is yet to be completed is the Exchange Control Act, which Finance Minister Choksy has to send to the Legal Draftsman and the Treasury . |
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