Major dispute at LANLIB between top officials

A major dispute has broken out between the Sri Lankan Chairperson and Libyan Managing Director of the loss-making Sri Lanka-Libya Agricultural and Livestock Development Company Ltd (LANLIB), a Sri Lanka - Libya joint venture, officials said.

Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Sunimal Ratnayake has called a meeting between the Libyan Consulate, the shareholders of the company and the directors to resolve the matter and to decide the future of the company, according to a top LANLIB official.

“Before the end of the year a meeting will be called by the Secretary and he has alerted the relevant parties to this effect,” said Anuri Dissanayake, Chairperson LANLIB told The Sunday Times FT.

Admitting that there is an issue with the company’s sustainability, she said that LANLIB has not been performing for sometime and that when she took office as the Chairperson in 2005 she came across many irregularities in the way the company was managed. “I saw that the company did not have a practice of preparing annual plans, annual budgets or monthly accounts. The company’s accounts were not audited since 2003/04 to 2005/06,” she said.

She said that the mainstay of the company is exports to Libya but the exports during the last 15 months have been very insignificant. “The primary source of business is livestock and agriculture, but the second source of income which is the tea and tea related exports to Libya brings in the majority of the revenue.

Ahmed Messallati, the Libyan Managing Director denied all allegations pertaining to the company not performing well owing to the export orders not coming from Libya.

“At times it was not doing well, but there were times it was performing well,” he said. Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) has 49 percent in LANLIB and the National Livestock and Development (NLDB) has 51 percent.

The LFICO representative is the Managing Director who is responsible to bring in business from Libya, but this has not been happening during the last few months,” Dissanayake pointed out. She said that the issue was aggravated when the company decided to have a board meeting together with an Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) and an AGM for the shareholders. Ahmed Messallati had not attended the board meeting which was not held as a result of his absence. She said Messallati had a visa issue as well, but she has nothing to do with it.

Messalati told The Sunday Times FT. “ When I applied to extend my visa for one more year (as is customary) in July, the immigration authorities only gave me three months. They said the Ministry of Livestock had requested them not to do so because they wanted to evaluate my performance,” he said. “According to the company law, any issue pertaining to LALIB should be dealt with NLDB and LFICO, but I got the letter from immigration,” he said. Dissanayake said there is huge potential for the company but the Managing Director needs to do his part. “He needs to bring export revenue from Libya. There is booming trade between Libya and Sri Lanka and the tea exports to Libya have increased by 135 percent during last year and it is not fair to the company when he does not perform,” she said.

She noted that the Managing Director’s expenditure is Rs.1.2 million a month and the entire staff salaries correspond to this figure. “As such there should be a return on this investment,” she said.