Features
On to the private sector – JKH, Hemas and Schaffter company
Working simultaneously with state and private sectors
(Excerpted from the autobiography of Lalith de Mel)
About the time I joined the SLT Board, Ken Balendra, the Chairman of John Keells Holdings, invited me to join the Board of his company. That was the start of my working simultaneously with the private sector and the State sector. Ken was a strong personality and could by himself enforce the disciplines of good governance. He was due to retire and he felt, and I think correctly, that he should leave JKH with a more formal structure to ensure good governance. He appointed three Independent Directors, S. Easparathasan, Franklyn Amerasinghe and myself, and later Tarun Das.
There was a major issue with the management arrangements at JKH. It had a serious ‘Parents-and-Children’ syndrome. The Executive Directors managed their segments of responsibility, like a chief executive. So they became the children managing the business. But they were also in corporate terms the parent responsible to the Board for this segment’s activity. So in effect they reported to themselves for their area of responsibility. So they were both parents and children.
In management terms this was a bad model and has been extensively discussed in the literature. I found a very good book on the subject and insisted that they all read it. The JKH team comprised nice and intelligent people and they were prepared to think positively about change where it was necessary. It was a pleasure working with this group, and they appreciated what I did for them.
They accepted that the business units should have a head reporting to the Directors – a separation of parents from children. The parents would be accountable to the Board. This is the classic management model and I was glad to take JKH down this road.
JKH had an entrepreneurial culture. I think this heritage came from Mark Bostock’s time. Instinct had played a role in selecting acquisitions. Persuading them to adopt hurdle rates and cash-flow paybacks helped to test acquisitions and to dispose of some bad acquisitions. When I was on the Board, the LMS (Lanka Marine Services) acquisition came up for discussion. The financials were good. I had a Shell background in my youth and knew something about petroleum products and bunkers.
I discreetly asked Susantha Ratnayake (who was promoting the acquisition) whether he or JKH knew anything about the bunker business. He said, `No, but Sir, it is not rocket science and we can learn it.’ He had acquired some of the JKH entrepreneurial culture. It was brave of him to persuade the Board to buy a business without knowing the business. They bought it and it was very profitable.
Ken Balendra knew his team better than anybody else and had selected Lintotawela to succeed him. He was a finance man and perhaps Ken thought it best to have a numbers man to preside over his entrepreneurial troops. I did not think he was quite JKH style and thought that Susantha was the driving force in the business. After I left the Board, whenever I met Susantha I told him that he was developing a stoop by carrying the business on his shoulders (he turned a light shade of pink and hated me for saying it). Subsequently Susantha Ratnayake became the very successful Chairman of JKH.
LEAVING JKH
I met Abbas Esufally, I think it was at the Golf Club, and he said Hemas was debating whether to go public (with a listing on the CSE), and he wanted me to help them to decide, and if they went ahead to help them through the process. I agreed to meet them and talk about it as I held the view, and still do, that a private sector economy would survive best if all the big companies went public, so that the wider public could also benefit from their success, and this would create inclusive growth.
Eventually I agreed to help Hemas, and I told JKH about it. Lintotawela was unhappy and I could not be on the JKH Board and the Hemas Board. He saw a conflict of interest because JKH was in Hotels and Serendib had three hotels, one in Sigiriya and one in Waikkal, where JKH had no hotels, and one three-star in Bentota where JKH had the five-star Bentota Beach Hotel. The JKH team tried to persuade me to dump Hemas and stay with them, but I felt I had done my bit for JKH and it was an interesting challenge to take Hemas public.
I resigned from the JKH Board to join Hemas. The JKH Directors continued as friends and still Susantha very kindly invites me for dinner from time to time.
Investing in Serendib and joining Hemas
Even during the dark days of the war, when tourist arrivals were poor, I believed that in the long-term tourism would be our oil well. To get closer to the industry I wanted to make an investment in a hotel company. Through a mutual friend I met Abbas Esufally and with his help bought the shares of a Director of Serendib Hotels, who was retiring. It was a relatively modest investment but it got me to the top three non-corporate individual shareholders and I was invited to join the Board. I also invested in the quoted Serendib subsidiary companies Sigiriya and Dolphin.
This gave me a good and continuous rolling insight of the tourism industry. I had always been interested in tourism as a good industry for developing countries. This close-up picture of the hotel industry was helpful in developing my knowledge. I was happy to be on the Board.
Serendib was a fairly unstructured business and I endeavoured to help the management develop relevant business processes. I encouraged the management to develop Serendib as a brand and to leverage the Bawa connection.
It was one of Geoffrey Bawa’s early hotels. It had been heavily influenced by 18th century Dutch architecture. The facade viewed from the beach had a remarkable resemblance to the well-preserved Dutch building in Pettah.
The hotel put together a Bawa room to illustrate and leverage the Bawa link. After Srilal Miththapala, the enthusiastic Manager in the early phase, we had Ranil De Silva, a very experienced modern Manager. I was happy to be an active and involved member of the Board, and saw the hotel expanding both physically and in quality and as a shareholder I was pleased that it also was a steady, profitable hotel.
Abbas Esufally, one of the four major shareholders of Hemas Holdings, was Chairman of the Company. He was perceptive of the issues relating to tourism, was a pleasure to work with, and I enjoyed working with him, for many years.
The Minor Group, a big international hotel group with a base in Thailand, had expressed an interest in some form of collaboration. This proved to be a distraction. The Serendib management was heavily involved in building its Anantara property in Kalutara and the Hemas Minor Joint Venture hotel in Tangalle. The joint venture with Minor never happened and Serendib had to consider a life without Minor. This was a new strategic challenge. I did not stand for re-election.
Hemas was owned by four Esufally cousins. Each managed a piece of the business, with freedom to do as they pleased. They had the same cars and same salary and lived down the same road. A high comfort zone.
My role was to explain the process, advantages and consequences of becoming a public company. The big concern was whether the public would buy the shares of a firm in Bristol Street owned by four Borah cousins. I was convinced that a properly-constructed public offering would succeed.
The daunting question for them was whether to remain private in their comfort zone or to release the value by going public and accepting all the restrictions on freedom that came with it. The prospect of becoming billionaires won. But it proved to be a hard struggle to get them to keep their part of the bargain and accept the restrictions on their freedom as a public quoted company. I agreed to come on the Board and lend my name to the public issue and the financial advisers were confident that the issue would be fully subscribed. It was.
Public company
It had three Independent Directors, and I was the Independent Chairman. I tried to perform two roles. To give them the benefit of my management experience and be a mentor to develop the management skills of the company and as Chairman to establish the good governance practices of a public company and create the corporate structures that would help optimize shareholder value.
The first problem
To complacently accept less than the best skills available was not compatible with the obligations of a Chairman, the custodian of the public shareholders’ interests. This created problems. The four family shareholders were all intelligent and educated. In the management structure of any good company, that only gets one to the starting gate. What they all, including Hussein, lacked was good business experience gained by working elsewhere under outstanding managers and a high quality management education.
It was a struggle to get them to accept that they should relinquish the Managing Director type of roles they performed, and to bring in first-class management so as to optimize shareholder value and for them to move to a Non-Executive Chairman type of role.
I can well understand that they would have resented me for pushing them to give up their roles, but probably reluctantly accepted that it was in the best interest of protecting the billions of value they owned in shares. Abbas Esufally was charming and gregarious, looked at it all in a very mature fashion, and took it all in his stride in the interests of developing shareholder value. His only concern was fashioning a useful role when he gave up his executive line job.
The biggest block
Hussein Esufally was the biggest block to creating a proper Board-managed company. Transition from a family firm to public company meant the major roles of managing the business, which were all in Hussein’s hand as the CEO of the family business, had to be vested in the Board headed by the Chairman.
He resented it, but had to accept, for example, that there had to be a Remuneration Committee, an Audit Committee, and that annual plans and investment proposals, etc. had to be approved by the Board. Good governance processes remain cosmetic until you give them teeth, and giving them teeth was not easy.
He saw this as a move of authority from him to me and did not like it, as it affected his ego. His reaction was to endeavour to diminish the image of the Chairman. He did not provide the Chairman with an office or a secretary, let alone a company car or entertainment allowance. When I insisted on an office, he gave me a little cubicle behind a secretary.
This undermined my ability to interact with the senior management as I had no proper venue to meet them and it was not in keeping with the image of a chairman of a public company to ask managers to meet the Chairman in his shoebox! When he had decided that he would be the next chairman, a grand office was created. I was like a shadow hovering relentlessly, pursing the reduction of his powers and creating a proper Board-managed public company.
Snakes and ladders
I thought that over the years I had convinced the family that the best method of protecting their wealth was to be a proper public company with an independent chairman and an experienced management team with a good track record managing it.
Steadily over the years we climbed up the ladder, rung by rung. I thought I had convinced them that the two sacred pillars of a good public company were an independent chairman and an excellent and experienced CEO.
When it was time for me to retire, sadly both these pillars were ignored. It was case of whizzing down a snake at the end. Hussein had decided to be Chairman. An end to independent chairmen at Hemas.
The choice for Chief Executive was Enderby. When I was a Director of CDC Plc in the UK, Donald Peck was Managing Director South Asia and Steven Enderby was a member of his private equity team. Steven Enderby had never managed a business as an executive CEO.
CDC was in private equity operations and Enderby could perhaps use his contacts from private equity days to get some funds to buy Hemas in the market and thereby help the share price. Steven is a friendly, charming and intelligent person but had no general management experience to bring to the party. After a long career of success in my endeavours, this is the one big blot of failure.
Fortunately for shareholders, Hemas had some good people, Malinga Arsakularatne had done an excellent job as Head of Finance. There had been many good marketing men in FMCG. If Hemas was prepared to have a CEO with great potential but no previous CEO experience in a big business, the very talented Kasturi Chellaraja Wilson would have been an excellent choice.
In addition to being appointed, there was also something in the air about Steven Enderby wanting to buy a large block of shares at a discount. I don’t know whether this ever happened. I did not want to be a party to the decisions regarding the Chairman and CEO. I said I must retire from the Board before these decisions were made and did so.I did not leave Hemas with the gratitude of the family but I think it was with their resentment.
Trading in bonds
Dinesh Schaffter wanted my help and guidance on developing a conglomerate of businesses he had put together. I said I would have a good look at his business and see whether I could add value. Ksathriya, as it was called, was managed by a small team of highly-paid managers.
I was appalled by what I saw in the numbers. They had made a number of bad acquisitions and were in the throes of making another, a supermarket chain, which had all the signs of another bad acquisition. Ksathriya was kissing distance away from bankruptcy. The task was not growth but restructuring for survival.
The management team was discontinued. Manjula Mathews, Dinesh’s sister, who also had a financial interest, joined the team to salvage what we could from this business which was in dire straits. This was the beginning of a long association with the Schaffters and their businesses. Ksathriya could not be saved as an ongoing business and all commercial operations dwindled down and were wound up.
Dinesh Schaffter was the eternal entrepreneur and his philosophy was ‘if one failed, look for another’. Ksathriya was reborn as Dunamis. Tucked away within it was a piece of relatively neglected business, which was high risk but interesting. The business called First Capital was a licensed bond trader and could trade in Government securities. So I joined First Capital as a mentor, ended up on the Board, and eventually was Chairman.
Trading in Government securities, to put it very simply, was to buy at the Central Bank auctions with money borrowed from the Banks and sell on at a profit but at very thin margins of profit. It was volume that gave one a meaningful profit, but volume meant high debt. It was a difficult business of predicting trends in interest rates and backing the judgment with high-risk trading.
Good governance was paramount. Processes had to be put in place to ensure good governance of trading and good management and they had to be rigorously enforced. The industry was heavily regulated. Compliance was vital as failure could result in losing the license to trade, which would mean the end of the company.
A compliance team was established but it was necessary for the Board to keep this activity under continuous review. The other area to be managed with utmost care was the management of risk and there was a Risk Management Committee. It was compliance to protect the license and risk to protect the shareholders’ money.
There were the other corporate bells and whistles essential in a public company, like a Remuneration Committee and an Audit Committee, and these were established. Around First Capital, there was another conglomerate developing. Wealth management, investment funds and a stockbroking firm. Good processes were established to facilitate their development.
The Schaffters, Manjula and Dinesh, were delightful people to work with, for many reasons. They were both very bright, there was always a chuckle even when contemplating dire circumstances if things went wrong. Never a risk of rumbling egos. If they had any, they never brought them to work. They always appreciated what I did for them. Whenever I met their father, Chandra Schaffter, he never failed to thank me for helping his children.
The thought of retiring from all work was hovering in my mind. A difficult regulatory development provided the exit. Stringent regulations were introduced about related party transactions. In close-knit conglomerates this was a problem and created the need to unravel them and to create new arrangements that complied with the regulations. At the tail-end of my career I had little appetite to take this on, and I had a good solution.
I had brought two excellent finance people on to the Board, Minette Perera and Nishan Fernando. They had both worked in companies where I was Chairman. Minette at Reckitts and Nishan at SLT. They were appointed to a Related Party Transaction Committee. After watching over it for a few months I knew it was in safe hands, and as I had done my bit for the Schaffters over the years I thought it was in good order not to stand for re-election, and brought the curtain down after a 55-year career.
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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