Govt owned agencies :

Restoring productivity urgent

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

Sri Lanka was well prepared for the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, a consequent of unregulated markets, as the Government had steady control over public and private sector business lines.

“This further emphasizes the strategic importance of a synchronized market and the pivotal role the public sector enterprises play”, Chairman Strategic Enterprises Management Agency (SEMA) Willie Gamage said at the inauguration of the first Export Forum Meeting held at Hilton Colombo organized by SEMA last week

However, the Government owned agencies have inherent weaknesses and problems which need immediate attention to restore productivity, efficiency and there by increasing growth and profitability of the state sector.

The strategic role of SEMA is to be a leader, motivator facilitator, innovator and guardian of SSOEs, Gamage said.

SEMA over the past three years has evolved from authoritative to relationship based on potential value expertise and access to resource as multi stakeholder partners, from strategic administrator to strategic catalyst and from managing within entities and silos to an all encompassing holding company approach to unlock synergistic value based on clusters.

Another change is that asset management focuses on resource with a ‘fresh look’ at business models.

SEMA which was established in 2004 as part of the Government’s key initiatives towards enterprise reform, consists of four clusters at present namely banking, plantation, transport and utilities, each having tremendous opportunity to develop into profit making entities.

This also encompasses a unit that deals with labour relations and special projects.

The need of some expertise from private sector in addition to the present cadre is felt with a view to bring in new thinking and creativity to gear the clusters to face the present challenges and competitiveness Gamage said.

The Expert Forum was organized corresponding to the current Government policy of non-privatization of public sector institutions and the experts who were invited to the forum were expected to share experience, knowledge, and lessons learnt with the intention of improving the competitiveness and efficiency of public sector institutions whilst providing a forum for information exchange.

The forum created a platform to intensify successful dialogue between the public and private sector experts who were present and valuable thoughts were shared which will be implemented in the future towardsthe development of the country.