Financial Times

Mobilising businesses to fight drug abuse

By Thushara Matthias
The Drug Advisory Programme of the Colombo Plan has called for greater awareness and action by the corporate sector in fighting drug abuse in the workplace.

It plans to organise a two-day seminar on preventing drug abuse in the workplace at the end of February in collaboration with the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board.

This will discuss drug abuse prevention plans in the workplace, ways of enhancing employee sensitivity to drug-related problems and current issues relating to drug abuse in the workplace.

"It is high time the Sri Lankan business community considers the value of a drug free workplace programme," said Tay Bian How, Director, Drug Advisory Programme of the Colombo Plan.

Countries like Malaysia, India, and Thailand have already taken several steps to avert drug problems at the workplace, he said.

Such a programme should be long-term, proactive, comprehensive, and aimed at related captive target groups, enhancing the image of the organisations and finally assisting businesses to flourish.

The cost of drug abuse places economic and social burdens on developing countries. Business organisations spend billions of dollars annually on drug abusers and health care costs.

Tay said that in Sri Lanka, a country emerging from a turbulent period of war and terror, the business world has to strive hard to uplift the economy. With the need to increase productivity of employees, the country could ill afford to have the younger generation debilitated by the scourge of drugs.

Providing a healthy and safe environment for the employees is every employer's concern, he said.

Drug abuse at the workplace has been recognised as an occupational hazard by the ILO. "No workplace is immune to drugs," said Tay. Drug abusers are often less productive and responsible for 50 to 80 percent of internal theft and losses in the workplace.

The three main concerns with regard to drug-related problems in the workplace are workers' health, welfare and safety, workplace productivity and legal liabilities.

Frequent unexplained absences, deterioration in the standard of work, loss of motivation, and dishonesty in work performance and attendance are common problems that occur in a workplace of drug abusers. The workshop, which will be conducted free of charge, is aimed at private companies, HR managers, heads of businesses, factory supervisors, NGO personnel and health and safety managers.Those interested in participating could contact the DAP, Colombo Plan Secretariat, 13th Floor, BoC Merchant Tower, P.O. Box 596, 28, St. Michael's Road, Colombo 3.(564448) or NDDCB, 383, Kotte Road, Rajagiriya (868794).

Shell commissions second carousel filling station

As part of Shell Gas Lanka Ltd's continuing effort to better service its valued consumers, the company recently installed and commissioned a second carousel filling machine with a capacity of filling 1,200 cylinders per hour at its Filling Plant in Mabima.

The filling machine was formally commissioned by the employees of the Mabima depot and graced by the visiting audit team led by George Vernon, Head of Health, Safety and Environment at Shell Global LPG.

The carousel is a semi-automated filling plant which has a total of 24 posts and 23 filling scales. It includes an automatic valve gasket detector, automatic weight check scale and an automatic leak detector. What this means is that Shell Gas consumers can now be assured of quality, correct weight and safety when they purchase a domestic LPG cylinder.

The installation was completed in a short time span of less than two months and the plant was installed and commissioned by Shell staff and local contractors using the experience and knowledge gained during the installation of the first carousel unit in 2001, according to a Shell statement.

Dr. Mahesha Ranasoma, Director Operations at Shell Gas said, "Commissioning of the second carousel unit at Mabima marks yet another significant milestone in the Shell Gas logistics infrastructure capability. This transforms the once fully manually operated Filling Plant at Mabima to a modern Filling Plant with automated filling of domestic cylinders with continued assurance of quality to the customer."The commissioning of the second carousel increases the productivity of the filling plant and Shell consumers can be assured of a supply of safe, quality LPG cylinders, the statement said.

Central Bank has failed

I am a retired government employee living on my pension and the interest I received on my savings I invested my savings this year in Pramuka Bank for these reasons:

* It is a bank registered and supervised by the Central Bank.

* The 14 percent per annum interest paid on deposits is equal to the interest paid by two other private banks on their debentures.

* I need the money for my daughter’s wedding as such I did not want to invest in debentures.

* A senior officer at the bank assured me that the bank is stable.

* Government departments too invested money with Pramuka and now it is proved correct as according to newspaper reports nearly Rs. 1.2 billion government money had been invested in Pramuka.

* The Central Bank by a press advertisement informed the public to invest money only with the financial institutions registered with the Central bank and Pramuka was included in a list of such institutions.

* During my period of government service all the government institutions were subjected to an annual inspection by the internal as well as general audits. As such I was under the impression that the Central Bank through their banking supervision division carries out inspections and warns the public of any shortcomings.

Now the bank has crashed. When the depositors met the CEO he had said that the bank was down but not out and that the bank will pay the depositors their money with the promised interest.

The Central Bank now says he is under investigation. So why did the Central Bank allow him to vanish abroad if he had been under investigation for so many years?

Rural Economy Minister Bandula Gunawardana says if people understand the subject of macro economics in depth they will learn to make the correct investment. Now how many investors like me understand this jargon or from whom can we get advice to invest about two to five lakhs of rupees saved over a period of 36 years?

All who invest money in banks will agree that the lack of supervision by the Central bank is the cause of the crash and the downfall of the depositors.

What is the use of having a banking supervision division if officials cannot supervise properly. Can the Central bank get away from this responsibility?

Retired government
employee,
Panadura

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