Competent Authorities to be appointed soon: Govt.

By Uditha Jayasinghe

The Government will be appointing the Competent Authorities to the 37 companies mentioned in the controversial takeover bill passed in Parliament last week within the “next few days,” a Minister said yesterday.

When questioned as to why the Competent Authority has not been established yet despite the bill being rushed through Parliament, Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella contended that a week was not time enough to take action.

“We passed the bill quickly because we were afraid that there would be protests and looting at the factories that are listed in the bill. In order to prevent this, we insisted that it be passed as an Emergency bill,” he said adamantly, maintaining the stance that the Government did not fear the bill being documented for several days.

Recalling that when former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike had her nationalisation bill passed, it was legal from the moment it was drafted, he said that the same draconian ideal was not followed by the Government.

He dismissed questions of whether the Government would take over other privatised State plantation companies and insisted that the takeovers would be limited to the 37 companies listed in the bill.

“We will not be taking over any privatised plantation companies; nor are we going to stop privatisation. That has clearly been seen by the Government handing over the Embilipitiya Paper Mill to an Australian company just the other day.”

However, he acknowledged that foreign investors would have to vigilant of the bill, but insisted that it was only to spur them on to doing better business.

Critics continue to protest the controversial bill as hampering investment, while the Colombo stock market rallied slightly on Thursday after weeks of bearish activity that saw it sliding from the best performing bourse in Asia to 11th position for the first time this year.