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| Thursday, 10 June 2004 |
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Call to focus more on public accountability in private sector by Shirajiv Sirimane The Sri Lankan political structure is not suited for the business environment and it may have helped to increase poverty in the country. According to the head of the Macro Economic Policy Unit of the Institute of Policy Studies in Sri Lanka, Dushni Weerakoon, the political system has been attributed to a low performing economy. "Due to this governments are always in an election mood and they would look for political survival rather than economic development," she said. Addressing the Annual General Meeting of the Association for Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) she said that with this political system a country cannot expect to achieve economic growth over 6 per cent. She said that the previous government had frozen subsidies, cut down on welfare and stopped recruitment to government institutions which made the government very unpopular. She said that the economic benefits never went to the villagers. Both the Indian and local elections have clearly proved this point. She said that the average debt is around 70 per cent in developing countries and in Sri Lanka it is 101.1 per cent. She said that Sri Lanka's privatisation programs too have been criticised for corruption. Local revenue generation is not adequate and the government would have to seriously think about this. "There should be a long-term plan for this," she said. President-elect of ACCA V. Kandasamy said that it is essential to have corporate governance principals as it would check corporate failures such as the Pramuka bank debacle and Enron and World Com in USA. "Last year we made a presentation at the Securities and Exchange Commission and stressed the importance of making corporate governance principals mandatory rather than include them in guidelines," he said. The ACCA would be continuing their efforts to work with regulatory bodies to introduce corporate governance principles and the implementation of international accounting and auditing standards in Sri Lanka. The government spends substantial sums on social welfare and also invests in capital expenditure for the economic development of the country. "Therefore the need for good public accountability and good governance practices in the public sector in Sri Lanka needs our attention," he said. The government in recent years annually spends around Rs. 650 billion and the budget expenditure for 2004 is around Rs. 667 billion," he said. The World Bank in its Country Financial Accountability Assessment Study report issued in June 2003 said that Parliamentary control of the public purse has become ineffective and does not currently meet the expectations set in the Constitution. It also stated that the accountability is focused on 'spending rather than managing for results'. |
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