Sunday Sep 22, 2024
Sunday Sep 22, 2024
Saturday, 9 November 2013 07:03 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Parthipan has organised this event for a long period of time and indeed I am grateful to him for bringing all these skills and professionalism to this event and making this a very memorable event in Sri Lanka for this year. Indeed the audience here is the cream of business society in Sri Lanka. We are delighted to be with you.
As a Minister of a Government which has made so much, facilitated for the existence and movements of the private sector, I am happy that the assistance given by our Government by building infrastructure in this country enables the private sector to move freely in their business endeavours. You all have taken advantage of that, for the benefit of yourself and our country.
As said by many of the speakers, the Government cannot depend only on 180,000 small taxpayers in the country. The Tax Department goes behind them and then tries to squeeze them but the big money comes from you all. Therefore, the existence of a Government is very necessary, that there should be a very vibrant private sector.
Engine of growth
The private sector is the engine of growth, in the country. So that engine has to be powerful, vibrant and fast moving. Therefore at events of this nature, I don’t think John Keells or Commercial Bank or any of these companies or CEOs or presidents, the board of directors need recognition from me or Ranil Wickremesinghe.
We are politicians. We always look for recognition. When we go to the people they garland us, we ask for the manapa votes. But you all do not want that. But an event of this nature has a special significance. That is being recognised for a collective effort in an organisation. It is not only the CEO or the Chairman of the Board of Directors who make things happen. There are people, from the labourer to the technician, the factory worker, there are a group of people who are involved in the process.
Therefore when we recognise this Top 25, we are recognising each and every worker who has been toiling hard to bring you profits. To make your share valuable. Therefore I plead to you, don’t forget them. Don’t discard them. Embrace them. And treat them properly. Because in Sri Lanka, we have 60,000 graduates without jobs. Some are working in the private sector. When the Government decided that all of them must be employed for a paltry salary of 10,000 to begin with, some people who were drawing Rs. 40-50,000 in the private sector left the private sector and came back. Did any of you in the private sector ask ‘why they are leaving us when we are giving so much of money?’
Social obligations
There is something lacking in the private sector. The private sector has done very well in certain areas. In areas such as social responsibility, have you done enough for the people of this country? Have you done enough for your own workers, have you done enough for the youth of this country – to stimulate them to come and work for you, keep them with you, to train them, to take on their 
English education, to have some classes or some area where continuous education is done?
Those are the lapses; that is why people are a little bit frightened to come to you. Therefore it is very much needed, because all your profits, all your money, your shareholding, all those things are good, but at the same time we must see have you fulfilled your social obligations. Therefore I would like to ask you, because I went through the criteria of selection, is this the correct criteria?
The selection criteria includes, share turnover, revenue, profit after tax, growth in sales turnover, growth in profits, return on equity, growth in earnings per share, market capitalisation and value addition. So workers’ welfare, social responsibility, protection of environment, has this company damaged the environment of our country, to what extent? Therefore are they eligible? You can think, ‘what environmental disaster has my company made?’ Therefore, we will have to change the selection criteria.
Then I think we should be able to think, ‘have I paid my tax, have I defaulted, have I bribed Customs offices and got my things through, and thereby got better profits, and hampered the national economy?’ Therefore profit, shareholders and all these things are not the main criteria. Sri Lanka will have to look for entrepreneurs, business people, business tycoons; we have no problem with you, we resonate them but same time, they should be true to themselves.
Food for thought
Today the Opposition Member of Parliament raised a question; Ranil Wickremesinghe was there I think, at the time. He raised this particular question to the Minister of Finance and Planning, that is, to please make the value of the national income rise by 20% out of the wealthiest persons in Sri Lanka and the value of the national income consumed by 20% out of the poorest persons in Sri Lanka known.
I think the answer to this question is food for thought when you go back to your own companies. And the answer was given. According to that answer, 20% of the cream of society, the wealthiest persons, probably including most of you all here, consumed 4,200 billion a year, last year, 20% of the poor people had consumed only 312 billion. So you see the disparity. This is where social unrest will occur.
The war is over. Terrorism is over thanks to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the armed forces. But we have a bigger challenge ahead, how we are pushing our poor people who are below the poverty line? It has come down but how we are pushing them to the middle income group? That is the role the private sector will have to play.
The private sector has a greater responsibility to ensure this gap is not widened. It becomes more and more closer and push these people to the middle income level. That is the first social responsibility we expect from you all. Because you have the capacity, you have the knowledge, you have the professionalism to embark on your ventures and do that.
SME entrepreneurs
A country cannot strive or depend only on 20, 25 or 100 business tycoons. The development of a country, even the US and many other countries, depends on the small and medium scale entrepreneurs. So that is where we have to think a lot, to what extent are we helping the small and medium entrepreneurs?
The Government alone cannot do that. So you must ensure that SMEs are not being shrunk by you and push them aside. Keep them in their business fields. That is and ongoing debate. Silently I heard amongst most of the people who I meet in Badulla, Bandarawela and many places in our own village areas. They say, ‘Amathithuma pod minihata business ekak karanna beh, ada loku company thamai api okkoma paagagena inne.’
I don’t know to what extent that is correct but I think there is some truth in that. So instead of saying you all are very good and all our business people are good, I must speak from a people’s perspective – I come from the people, my survival depends on my voters, and the people in Sri Lanka. Some survive on shareholders, or on bankers, and my survival is within my people’s forum. It is my duty to bring this to your notice.
Please think about that, help them, don’t think that, in Sinhala we say ‘thaniyema Budu wenawa,’ don’t do that. Take all other samaneras and all the other people also up to that position, that’s why I say the concept of social responsibility should extend to that. To what extent business tycoons and companies have helped SME entrepreneurs and how many SMEs they have helped and brought them up – those are the characteristics or the yardsticks by which we can measure your performance. We need a new yardstick for performance for all business people.
Go global
I must say at the same time our savings rate is only 23%; for a country to move forward we need, as Cabraal will explain to you, at least 35% investment, so we need more money. Our Government has facilitated this by opening the current account and you can borrow money from abroad, you can enter into partnership with foreign countries, and bring money here and therefore the private sector should, as said by Harry Jayawardena, go global. It is very necessary not to restrict yourself here but go global and bring more investment opportunities here in Sri Lanka.
Human resource development
At the same time I must also say that we need human resource development, don’t leave it out. For example, in Sri Lanka, due to the fault of our own education system, we have not produced enough technical personnel in this country. Now the Government has changed the policy, and the technical education has been given priority but the private sector must help technical education.
I remember when I was a young lawyer and the all-island organiser of the Sinhala Tharuna Sanvidanaya, I remember, Macwoods – M.S. Mendis – helped me to train 100 people, in vocational training in these institutions. Don’t leave it only to the Government or only to the universities. Why don’t you use 3% of your profit, put that money for vocational training and get some apprenticeship into your own company, train them and build up a workforce in this country? Therefore you should take the responsibility; these are some of the things you could sometimes forget, therefore I thought it was better for me to remind you.
Private-public partnership
At the same time I must say, private-public partnership is very important. I am happy that some of the banks whenever I bring Cabinet papers, every Friday, and we have the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, I go through them. I stretch 2.5% of the total loan facility to pay the bigger amounts for the roads, some for water and mini infrastructure development. That is a positive scenario which we see, and more and more should be encouraged. Because you must become vibrant partners for infrastructure development of the country. Therefore I am sure that we will be able to work with you, our Government is always prepared to work with the private sector.
We don’t belong to the era where we say ‘Danapathiya banga wewa’. No. We want danapathiyas but danapathiyas should look after the other poor people in the country and they must be able to help them to elevate their lives. Therefore, it is indeed a great pleasure for me and I thought I should air some of the grievances I had in society. Therefore I am thankful to Mathi for giving me this opportunity.
