News
Treasury revokes temporary ban on CSR projects of SOEs
The Treasury has reversed an earlier decision to temporary suspend Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
The Government suspended all CSR activities of SoEs soon after last November’s presidential election.
A circular issued by Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle at the time, noted that SoEs had been executing a vast number of CSR activities, including sponsorships, donations, and advertisements, without a clear objective of achieving the government’s development goals.
“You are kindly requested to suspend the CSR activities of your agency until further notice,” the circular said, adding that the chief accounting officer, members of the board of management and Chief Executive Officers (CEO) would be held personally responsible, if any CSR activities were continued or initiated notwithstanding the said instructions.
Mr Attygalle, however, issued a fresh circular on Wednesday noting that, given that the Government had appointed members to Boards of SoEs facilitating their operations, the circular regarding the temporary suspension of CSR activities of SoEs including sponsorships, donations and advertisements was being revoked.
The Treasury Secretary also reinstated a circular on advertising and promotional activities of SoEs, instructing heads of SoEs to follow all instructions in the said circular before incurring any expenditure as advertising and promotional activities.