Making Public–Private partnership meaningful

Good governance is the key

It is shameful that this country has not achieved desired progress and development, even after 60 years of independence, and the retardation could be attributed to petty politics that has been prevalent ever since, Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister Karu Jayasuriya said at the Key Person’s Forum conducted by Small and Medium Enterprise Developers (SMED). It was a project of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) and Friedrich Naumann Stifftung (FNSt).

The Forum was held at Trans Asia Hotel and Jayasuriya spoke on ‘Making Public–Private Partnership Meaningful – Strategy of the Government.”

He said that he has long been associated with the private sector. He conceded that while the role played by the private sector should be appreciated, the corruption too has to be acknowledged. In his Ministry, Jayasiriya said, he was able to infuse efficiency, which should be taken as a role model to be emulated by the public sector. 

He said that looking at the pre and post independence period of this country, the public sector was disciplined and, moral and at that time, Sri Lanka’s pubic sector was one of the best in Asia. 

When the British left this country, they left behind a good highway network and a railway system. When it comes to the public sector at that time, it served mostly for the convenience of the Europeans. The private sector performance at that time was very active, but the local private sector was not that active.   

He said that with the advent of independence, the birth of National Chamber of Commerce was established to look after local business and to compete with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Successive governments considered theprivate sector as the engine of growth. The Minister said that the private sector has been respectable and been playing a meaningful role in the economy of the country. 

However, he said that after 60 years of independence, the country has not achieved so much other than what was left over by the British and there was no tangible development such as building of necessary highways, to the satisfaction of the public.

He said that there is high cost of electricity and as a plausible answer, the establishment of coal power plants were planned in 1992. It was very recently the government was able to at least start with a coal power project. He said that another factor causing the retardation of development could be attributed to not utilising the full potential of the private sector. He said that the majority of the private sector capabilities were ignored.

The Minister added that the public sector in Sri Lanka is dynamic, which has been growing despite many difficulties. He said that in some areas such as the services and garment industries, private sector has done extremely well.  They are operating successfully and are even expanding to the other parts of the globe. He said that though some of these private sector businesses are not known here, international business people are well aware of the Sri Lankan private sector successes.

He also said that comparatively, post-independently, the public sector has declined where the lack of discipline and inefficiency have become the main features of the sector. This deterioration could be attributable for the politicisation of the entire administrative system. 

The Minister added that somewhere in the 90’s and early 2000, all the political parties moved the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. With that they were able to agree on some form of reforms, such as the setting up of the Constitutional Council, without political, ethnic and religious prejudices. It functioned smoothly, until its first term was over. But then, due to certain shortcomings, new Constitutional Council was failed to be set up. 

Jayasuirya also said that another area that reforms are necessary is the electoral system, of which, the talks have been conducted for several years but no progress was made. He added that the current electoral system costs a lot of money and cause other complications and therefore, a change in the system is necessary. He noted and appreciated the support given by the FNSt in these electoral reform activities.