SLSI’s COVID-19 compliancy must be mandatory

Dr. Rohantha Athukorala at the CICPM Planning seminar

The ‘Planning’ seminar was recently organised by the Chartered Institute of Certified Professional Managers (CICPM). Delivering the keynote, Dr. Rohantha Athukorala voiced that given the precarious

situation the country is in due to the COVID-19 virus the only option now is to practice the ‘Hammer and Dance’ theory across the country whilst making it mandatory for every company to be COVID-19 control certified by SLSI.

“The Sri Lanka Standards Institute together with Rotary architectured the certification process way back in April at the initial lockdown (Hammer and Dance stage) and to-date almost 300 entities from top rubber exporting companies to tea exporting conglomerates have gone through the process and the benefits we see today,” voiced Dr. Athukorala, commending SLSI DG/CEO Dr. Siddhika Senaratne and her team for outstanding leadership. 

It is alleged that the escalation of the current pandemic in Sri Lanka stemmed from an apparel factory and then moved to the first and second layer in the community. Almost 7,000 people have been infected with the higher case load deadly virus within just three weeks with 20 people dead in Sri Lanka in the backdrop of the global pandemic hitting a new wave with almost 45 million people infected and over a million people succumbing to the deadly virus.

“It is very unfortunate that this had to happen to Sri Lanka as we were just recovering from the Q1, 2020 -1.6% GDP growth trajectory that is rumoured to have hit a -17% in Q2 but Sri Lanka fought back with V shape recovery as per the Index of Industrial Production with exports crossing $ 1 billion in successive months,” voiced Dr. Athukorala who has led both the exports and tourism industries of Sri Lanka. “But we must live in the reality ‘Hammer and Dance- lockdown and opening the economy’ will be the new normal and we must now adjust our business strategies and plan for this in 2021,” he said.