Top honours for Commercial Bank at CA Sri Lanka’s 53rd Annual Report Awards
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted that the government is at ‘the bottom of financial reporting’ but promised unstinted support for those who will leap to invest, create jobs and dispense high shareholder value through the proposed new development bank.
At the 53rd CA Sri Lanka Annual Report Awards held on Tuesday in Colombo, he said this new entity will disburse Rs. 35 billion funds initially and the Treasury, the state banks and main commercial banks will become its stakeholders.
“Looking at the profits and the performances of the companies, I encourage you all to call on your clients and invest in different sectors. We are in the growth area of Asia and I want our enterprises to play a leading role,” he said.
Mr. Wickremesinghe added that the Monetary Board and the Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy were now ensuring good financial reporting in the public sector with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get the country’s books in order.
He added that the Government is struggling with accounting for their debt position and the amount of repayments.
“To start with the Central Bank, we now have to work out how much did we borrow, how much did we take through private placements, how many of those private placements were authorised, how many were not authorised,” he said.
He said that private placements and national debts are at Rs. 4.5 trillion but with the interest rates, the total debt repayments could combine to about Rs. 7 trillion.
“Since we are not in a position to repay all this at the end of the period, we have rescheduled and taken loans.”
He said the Government is bringing in laws to ensure that it could pay its own debts through a new Liability Management Act and reporting to Parliament through the Financial Responsibility Act.
The Commercial Bank won the coveted ‘Cyril Gardiner Memorial Trophy’ Gold Award for Overall Excellence in Annual Financial Reporting at the grand finale of the 53rd Annual Report Awards Competition. Hayleys PLC came in second, bagging the silver award for overall excellence in financial reporting while Diesel & Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) won the bronze award in the same category.
Commercial Bank also won gold under the Management Commentary Award, while DIMO won silver and People’s Leasing & Finance PLC won bronze. The Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting category gold award was won by People’s Leasing & Finance while Mercantile Investments & Finance PLC won the silver and National Development Bank PLC (NDB) won the bronze. NDB also won gold for Corporate Governance Disclosure, while Union Assurance PLC won silver and Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB) won bronze.
Speaking at the event, President of CA Sri Lanka Lasantha Wickremasinghe said transparency, accountability and good governance are vital for both the public and private sectors, as it is interconnected to a country’s growth and development. “The national government under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was built on the premise of good governance, and as a responsible professional organisation in the country, CA Sri Lanka too has implemented a series of initiatives from within the institute to enhance good governance which will reflect on the accounting profession, its professionals and ultimately the country,” he said.
Speaking at the event, Chairman of the Annual Report Awards Committee Sanjaya Bandara said 140 companies took part in this year’s competition, representing multinationals, conglomerates, and even NPOs and NGOs.
“Selecting the best is never an easy task, and in our quest for excellence we carried out a three tier process of evaluation in which more than 300 resource personnel were involved to ensure we selected the best reports,” he said.