Engage and push for reform, urges Athukorala

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) featured Rohantha Athukorala, the Head of National Portfolio Development for Sri Lanka and Maldives for the United Nations (UNOPS) at the Business Briefs evening meeting for the members for the month of October.

The key thought shared by the speaker was to engage the policy makers in a positive manner on periodic basis for reforms to take place in the areas of approvals and licences, so that speed of implementation becomes faster. However, he asserted that it must be private sector led.

Athukorala, who was the first Executive Director of the Government’s key policymaking body the NCED in the Presidential Secretariat, commented that when a country moves out of a conflict, it takes some time for attitude change to take place in a system as well as to instil a market-driven approval process, but with purposeful interaction, this can be achieved.

“The onus has to be on the private sector to work with the public sector to make this happen, rather than the other way around,” he added.

One of the strongest issues that the private sector raises at any forum is the delays that take place in getting Government approvals, be it for the construction of a hotel, hospital, school, telecom tower or renewable energy project as well as the multiple agencies that one has to visit to obtain the approvals.

Athukorala alerted the audience that Sri Lanka had made giant strides on the country’s competitiveness by moving up from a low rank of 79 in 2009 to a commanding position of 52 today.

“We must not push the system too hard as we are just only two years after coming out of a conflict,” he pointed out. “We must give the public sector the space to also rev up internal performance to deliver 8% growth.”

Especially when it comes to procedural changes, as it is a systemic change and calls for a structural change in some instances, it can take some time, he explained. But given that fewer elections are scheduled for 2012, if the need calls for taking tough decisions, this can be made, which means that the closer the private-public interaction, the greater the impact one can make on policy, said Athukorala.