Parliamentarian Diana Gamage revealed in Parliament on Friday that there are 527 establishments under the Government. “Of these, only 52 have been identified as those with strategic importance. The asset value of these 52 establishments has been identified as Rs.12,437 billion. Yet with such an asset base, the Government has received only Rs. 30 billion as revenue last year.”
“CEB, Ceypetco, SriLankan Airlines, etc., are some of these establishments and the losses amounted to Rs. 286 billion last year alone, she said.
The MP said that if such public sector-owned institutions are making losses, more attention should be paid to it.
She noted that Sri Lanka is a broken nation as a result of corruption and everyone must unite in order to rebuild it. “The country is in a very difficult situation, both economically and politically.”
“However, with all the Opposition dithering, I don’t know if we will ever be able to get into some sort of agreement to establish an All-Party Government. The IMF requests that we have a stable government and stable country if we are to go any further. As citizens of this country, it is our duty and responsibility to contribute to get the country out of this situation.”
She noted that the country is in this situation due to long-standing issues such as malpractice, corruption, incompetence and not taking the right decisions at the right time. “The country has been suffering from corruption over the past so many decades. Hence, this is something that we have to work on with transparency. This is what President Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to do and I feel this is of utmost importance and we should support him.”
